


Same As You

by Twisted_Mind



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Always Female Stiles Stilinski, Biker Peter Hale, Bisexual Stiles Stilinski, Cis Female Stiles Stilinski, Dom Peter Hale, Drunk Sex, F/M, Good Parent Sheriff Stilinski, Hand Jobs, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Internalized Misogyny, Light Dom/sub, Nogitsune Trauma, Oral Sex, Post-Nogitsune Stiles Stilinski, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Praise Kink, Safewords, Sheriff Stilinski's A+ Parenting, Sheriff Stilinski's Name is John, Slut Shaming, Spanking, Steter endgame, Stiles Stilinski is Pushed Out of the Pack, Sub Stiles Stilinski, Suicidal Thoughts, Touch-Starved, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Vaginal Fingering, Working Out My Feelings Through Fic, kink as a coping mechanism, non-verbal safeword, parents are people and flawed, shared showers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:42:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 23,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25909051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Twisted_Mind/pseuds/Twisted_Mind
Summary: Wherein trauma does not bestow superpowers, and healing is neither simple nor linear. But it is possible.
Relationships: Peter Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Stiles Stilinski & Jackson Whittemore, Stiles Stilinski/Jackson Whittemore
Comments: 230
Kudos: 651





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So. I started this fic in early March, shortly after I received news of a death in the family, and started writing this as part of my grieving process. And then the plague rolled out across the globe. And then the BLM movement and police brutality flooded the news and everyone’s dashes. And suddenly, my supposed-to-be-little coping fic grew beyond the initial idea, and developed a depth I didn’t expect. It became a story about the ways trauma breaks us, the ways in which we stumble and fall and stagger blindly in our attempts to mend our broken places, and the ways in which other people will be a guiding light and helping hands for us, if we let them. 
> 
> If that doesn’t sound like a story for you, that’s okay. You have to take care of yourselves, especially right now, and this story does touch on and include some difficult topics. But for those of you who decide to dive in, I hope you can find meaning here, the way I have. 
> 
> All the thank yous to Bunnywest and DiscontentedWinter for cheering this on as I wrote this, but eff you both for laughing at me as the wordcount ran away to Vegas. Thank you to Shey, Mrs_Ridcully, and steveelotaku for hand-holding without the loving mockery. This story is (almost!) complete, and will update every Friday.

Stiles can’t explain it, after. She doesn’t even try. She doesn’t have the words for how it feels, to live in this body that doesn’t feel like it’s hers. She spends an afternoon trying to figure out if it actually _is_ her body, or if the Nogitsune made a copy and spat her out, keeping the original for itself. All her clothes fit the same—or close enough. Her moles are in the right places. Her eyes and hair are the same colour. But it seems like she’s missing scars she should have, scars she knows she had, once—from falling off her bike, lacrosse, punching Jackson in the mouth back in sixth grade when he had braces.

Worse, she has reflexes and muscle memory she never used to have. She’s not clumsy anymore, and she never thought she’d miss being able to trip over thin air, but it would be normal, familiar. Comforting. She wants it back now that it’s gone.

She doesn’t know what she’s thinking when she decides to replace the scars she’s lost. She doesn’t know why she does it, doesn’t understand why the neat row of thin, shallow lines carved across the top of her thigh make her sob, dark and ugly, when she’s been hollow and numb since Allison’s funeral. It just does.

After, she stares at it, aching and afraid—of what she’s done, of the way it helped, of how she’s going to hide it when she’s around werewolves and their boundary-challenged faces all the time. Her hands shake when she cleans the cuts, as she slathers on ointment and bandages it for bed. She knows she can’t do this again—there’s no way to reliably hide it, too great a risk of it costing her something else she can’t afford to lose. She wants to do it again as much as she knows she can’t.

It takes her a long time to fall asleep.

***

The problem with not-doing-it-again is that she’s not numb anymore. If she was, she could handle it. But she’s not.

And now that she’s not numb, the way Scott’s avoiding her hurts, the same way Lydia refusing to meet her eyes does. The nightmares are bad, but if Derek answered his phone, maybe she’d be able to get back to sleep. The concern in Dad’s eyes chokes her every time she sees it. She doesn’t deserve it, doesn’t know what to do with it—doesn’t know how to tell him she’s still his baby girl, how to tell him she’s not, that the Nogitsune killed her, too, even if it didn’t put her in the ground next to Allison.

And she knows Dad feels it, too. Knows that he doesn’t know how to help her, how to understand, even if he wants to. (Stiles isn’t sure she wants him to understand.) But he’s still the Sheriff, and the station is still missing deputies, so there’s more distance between them right now than he wants there to be. Stiles thinks the distance might not be enough. It’s so much easier to convince him that everything’s okay, that she’s got a handle on things, when he’s not home to see the hours she loses to anxiety and blankness and tears, the sleep she’s not getting. Concealer covers a multitude of sins.

She’s hurt him enough.

***

The first time she catches herself staring at the cabinet where Dad keeps the Jack Daniels, she makes herself look away. The second time, she lets herself think about it while statistics on problem drinking and alcohol abuse in the children of alcoholics roll around her head like tumbleweeds. She doesn’t open the cabinet.

The third time, she drives out to the Argents’ house and walks up the steps feeling like she’s going to throw up. She ends up crying silently, palms and forehead pressed to the front door she can’t bring herself to knock on. No apology in the world will bring his daughter back, and her dad isn’t stable enough yet for her to offer Chris a chance at revenge. She can’t fix this, can’t even help in some small way. The only thing she can do is make it all worse.

She drives home, pulls down one of the bottles from the cabinet, and chokes down enough liquor to get an unprecedented four and a half hours of sleep without nightmares. She wakes up feeling a little more dead than usual, but doesn’t know if that’s from the booze or the harsh reality that she can only make things worse for the grieving father of the girl she killed.

***

She doesn’t know who she is, anymore. She’s not a very good daughter, sure as shit isn’t a good packmate to the others when she can be around them without wanting to throw up. Isn’t smart or brave or any of those things that she thinks she might’ve been, once. Except stupid. She’s still plenty of that, and always has been.

Why else would she chase after a girl who wouldn’t even acknowledge her existence enough to tell Stiles to fuck off? How else did she land them all in this mess by dragging Scott into the Preserve to look for a dead body?

Why else is she still here?

***

She doesn’t know why she does it except that she can’t handle her reflection anymore. Can’t stand looking into the mirror and seeing the exact same face looking back at her as she saw before the Nogitsune wore her like a cheap suit to tear apart the lives of everyone foolish enough to get close to her. Nothing should look the same after that. _Something_ should be different.

It’s so easy it’s frightening to pull out Dad’s clippers and buzz off the sort-of bob she’s been trying to grow out. She’s left with a uniform half-inch of fuzz all over her head and a small kitten’s worth of hair in the bathroom sink, on the counter, the floor, when she’s done. It’s a little easier to face the mirror, now. A little easier to breathe.

The cut—it’s almost boyish, but only almost. Her features are too fine, too delicate for that. She likes the way it feels under her palm when she rubs at the back of her head.

***

Stiles stares at the bottle of Adderall in her hand, and wonders when, exactly, her entire life went completely off the rails. This shouldn’t be hard. This has been part of the morning routine for the better part of a decade. Adderall with breakfast is as much a part of life as her period.

And yet, here she is: heart thudding erratically in her chest as she stares at the meds she can’t make herself take. She stands there frozen long enough that she skips breakfast entirely in her mad dash to get to school on time.

(When she feels like she has the flu from withdrawals, she tells herself to get over it. She did this to herself, same as everything else. She brought this on herself, not taking her meds, letting it in, dragging Scott out that night.)

***

The first time it happens, it’s an accident. She was wandering around town at midnight because she’s terrified to fucking sleep these days, and apparently managed to stumble across a house party the community college kids are throwing. She’s invited inside and figures why not—it’s not like the mundane sort of trouble she might run into here could ever be worse than what’s already happened.

What ends up happening is a lot of booze and music loud enough to drown out the hissing not-voice of the Nogitsune in her head. What happens are bodies pressing close and warm in ways that they haven’t since she and the kitsune split and she was left to wonder whether this body has always been hers or is a cleverly-made copy it created for her, stealing her flesh along with everything else it fucking took. What happens is a freshman girl thinking she’s a lesbian and kissing her. The kisses are nice, Stiles likes those, so she goes with it.

“Going with it” sees her losing her virginity on the tongue of a girl whose name she doesn’t know, but who’s patient with her as Stiles tries to repay the favour. It’s not how she expected this to happen, but she’s not disappointed. She’s learned something about herself, gained something positive, something almost _normal_ in the middle of all this.

The fact that she manages to sleep for a whole six hours next to the girl feels like a miracle, and puts the final nail in the coffin of any regret she might’ve felt.

***

Jackson comes back. Stiles thinks she’s okay with that, or will be. Lydia could use someone in her corner, now that Allison’s gone. And, in a way, it’ll be something familiar. He’ll tease her about being the only girl on the lacrosse team, and she’ll . . . well, she doesn’t know, exactly, but she’s got a lifetime of petty squabbling with Jackson Whittemore to fall back on. It should be easy, like riding a bike. She won’t forget how.

Only, that’s not what happens, because instead of the usual banter and barbs, he’s looking at her with eyes full of something like understanding, and it makes her skin crawl. She doesn’t want that, not from anyone, but especially not from him. Jackson’s meant to bring normalcy back with him, not drag her even further away from the person she was before chaos ripped her apart for shits and giggles.

The only thing she can think to do is avoid him like a plague. She’s not on the lacrosse team anymore, so she thinks it’ll be easy. Jackson the Jock will stick to his own kind, and she’ll stay on the fringes, will avoid the cafeteria at lunch and all the people who can’t bring themselves to be near her right now (not yet, maybe not ever), and it’d be fine. They’ll settle into a new routine, and he’ll be a face she knows but nothing more.

She can live with that. At least he wasn’t someone she hurt directly, though whether or not he’ll hold what happened to Lydia, to Allison, against her, she doesn’t know. She thinks he might. She’d deserve it if he did.

But when he corners her at her locker when everyone else is heading to the cafeteria for lunch, his voice softer than his eyes, she panics. “Don’t,” she snarls, her pulse hammering in her ears.

He ignores her. “Look, I know we were never really friends, but you’re pretty obviously not o—”

She punches him. It’s not until the stinging in her hand registers that she understands why his head snapped to the side.

The look he gives her is suspicious, not angry. He opens his mouth, and Stiles just. Can’t.

This time, her knee is what moves without her permission. Only, this time, the hit doesn’t land, because Jackson twists away. Her left hand flies, and he catches it.

She expects his grip to hurt, but it doesn’t. It’s just solid, and holds her where she is. Her heart probably sounds like a panicked rabbit’s as Jackson’s eyes track over her face. She doesn’t know what he sees there, but he lets her go, and takes a step back.

“Once you’re done with this part, come find me. I can help you through the rest.”

And then he walks away. Stiles ducks into the nearest bathroom to have a panic attack, and is late for her next class.

***

When she goes home that night, she lies to her dad and tells him she’s okay, and he lets her. It’s what they do, now. (She ignores the thought that _it’s what they’ve done ever since Mom died_.) She goes upstairs, does her homework, and waits until he’s in bed to cry in the shower.

After, she stares at herself in the mirror, at her hollowing cheeks and gnawed-raw lips, red-rimmed eyes surrounded with deep purple shadows and her impulsively buzzed-off hair starting to grow back in, and she hates. Her reflection, herself, feeling this way—she doesn’t know anymore. She just hates it.

***

The second time isn’t an accident. It’s not really deliberate, though, not on her part. It’s more that she was able to sleep—four, five, _six_ hours even—after the first time, and nothing else is doing that for her. Not the antidepressants her doctor prescribed, not her Adderall, not even alcohol anymore. She craves what the college girl gave her. All of it. The only problem is, no one who actually knows her is willing to give it to her.

Because she’s weird, nerdy Stiles. Because she’s the Sheriff’s daughter. Because she’s underage. Because they _know_ , and don’t want to invite what the Nogitsune touched into their beds.

So she goes to the biker bar on the edge of town. It’s not a particularly well-thought-out decision, but she figures, if anyone’s willing to do something stupid and questionably legal, the bar that doesn’t card its’ grey-zone dwelling patrons is the place to find them. She buys a beer to blend in, and watches the room for a few minutes while she waits for the bartender to get to her order. There are more people here than she’d expected. More women, too. She’s not actually sure how to go about getting what she’s after—the first time, she sort of tripped, fell, and landed on a talented tongue. She doesn’t know how to do it on purpose.

Luckily, someone approaches her, buys her another drink, and she recognizes the hunger in his eyes. She knows she should probably say no, go home, but she’s not going to. Why would she? Instead, she follows her tattooed stranger towards the back, only to be stopped by a hand wrapping around her wrist.

It doesn’t startle her like it should.

Maybe because, when she follows the hand to its owner, she sees a very familiar face making judgemental eyebrows at her. “There you are, sweetheart,” Peter says, and it’s loud, why is he speaking loudly? She’s right here. “I wondered where you’d gotten to.”

The man she was following says, “Awh, shit, man. I didn’t know she was here with you,” and _oh_ , that’s why.

Peter nods. “No trouble, but I think I’ll take her home before she wanders away again.”

Her would-be hookup laughs, and walks away, and then Peter’s herding her towards the back door out of this place. Once they’re in the quiet of the alley behind the bar, she expects him to ask her what she thinks she’s doing, or give her a lecture, mock her, maybe. It’s Peter, after all.

He doesn’t do any of those things.

Instead, his hands find her hips, and he turns her to face the brick wall of the bar as he slots himself against her back. “Put your hands on the wall, and keep them there.”

She’s slow, and shakes a little, but she obeys. “Why? What are you doing?”

One of his hands leaves her hip to splay across her belly as he hums in her ear. “You didn’t end up here by accident, Stiles. I can smell the desperation all over you.”

Shame, liquid and lava-hot, bubbles up from her stomach to fill her throat. She opens her mouth to defend herself—though with what, she doesn’t know, because it’s not like Peter’s fighting fair, with his senses to tell him what she’s feeling and how truthful she’s being—but he speaks before she can.

“So I’m going to give you exactly what you need, just so long as you’re a good girl for me and keep your hands on that wall. You lift them without asking me first, and I’ll stop, even if you’re on the brink of coming. Understand?”

And Stiles, well. She hangs her head and chokes out something like a yes, hating how much she wants this from him, how easy it is to let Creepy Uncle Peter pop the button on her jeans and lower the zip. How her breath hitches when he doesn’t immediately slide them down, or put his hand inside, but instead slides one back up to her stomach, under her tee shirt and flannel overshirt this time, tracking upwards until he reaches her chest. She thinks he’ll say something about the fact that she’s not wearing a bra, but he doesn’t—instead, he nips and suckles at the side of her neck as his fingers pluck and roll and pinch at her nipples until she’s squirming, arching back against his bulk.

He keeps at it until she’s a shivery, strung-out mess of need on the verge of soaking through her jeans. That’s when he finally slides his other hand down inside them, the pads of his fingers skating slickly over her folds. “Spread your legs for me, precious,” he murmurs, and her cheeks burn, but she does.

He rewards her by sinking two thick fingers inside, and her head drops back against his shoulder as she moans. She couldn’t help it if she tried. His fingers twitch inside her, tiny little pulses that tease her g-spot as his palm grinds against her clit with what would probably be too much pressure if she wasn’t wetter and more turned on than she’s been in her entire fucking life. It’s good, but it’s a tease, and she wants more but also for it to never stop, and he doesn’t speed up or slow down or change what he’s doing even when she whines out a broken little “please”—just the exact same twitches of his fingers and the friction of his palm, winding the tension in her body tighter and tighter until she’s shaking and it’s only his arm under her shirt and his chest at her back keeping her upright. Then, suddenly, there’s heat flushing her entire body as she makes a cracked, pornographic moan because she’s coming so hard stars burst behind her eyelids.

Her hands never budge from where they’re pressed against the wall, not until Peter’s physically carrying her back to the Jeep because her legs have turned to Jell-O.

***

She wakes up the next morning with shame clogging her throat and the ghost of Peter’s hands on her body, his lips on her forehead. She checks the clock, and it’s 9:30, she’s late for school, but she doesn’t care, because it’s the first full night of sleep she’s gotten without nightmares since all this happened, and she wants to cry because _Peter_ is the one who gave her this. Not her father, not Scott, not Lydia or Derek or Kira or even Jackson.

She doesn’t know how to handle that, what to think, how to feel, so she just. Doesn’t. She gets up, showers, gets dressed, and eats on autopilot, and goes to school late. She’s missed first period, but she doubts anyone will care. Hell, her dad might even be happy to hear that she overslept, because it means she was _sleeping_.

***

She gets one more night of actual sleep before the nightmares come again. Two more after that, the insomnia is back. She tries to find another college party, but it’s a Tuesday night in small-town California. The only party she’s gonna find is one she makes herself.

Dad’s on nightshift, so she sets up her computer to play some club mix as she lies in the dark with a mostly-empty bottle of Jack.

She gets three hours of sleep before the nightmares come. There’s no more sleeping after that.

***

The grief counsellor and her doctor keep saying to “give it time”. She doesn’t know what they think she’s doing, because time is all she has, these days. She sure as shit doesn’t have hobbies or friends or anything else worth having, except her dad. And even then, she’s not sure she really does have him. He loves her, she knows that, but she’s also starting to think that he hasn’t quite been all here since Mom died. That, if she left too, he’d come join them both, because maybe that’s where he’s wanted to be all along.

(The antidepressants aren’t working—but then, she never really expected them to.)

***

It’s been almost two weeks ( _six hours and twelve days_ ) since she let Peter fingerfuck her in an alley, and she still can’t sleep. Not in more than snatches, not enough to make her feel actually present as she drifts from class and to class and does things by rote and sometimes twice by accident because she’s too tired to remember. She’s too alone to pay more attention, to grab hold and push until she can focus, and she doesn’t blame them, not really—not Lydia, who she terrified, who she made wail for her best friend, and not Scott, who she stabbed, to say nothing of holding his first love as she died, after _Stiles killed her_ —and Derek, well, she understands why he’d want to run, to put as much distance between his broken heart and the hammer that is Beacon Hills, because she thinks she’d run, too, if she could. She was never close with Kira, never gave the young kitsune a reason to be loyal, which means there was nothing to betray.

So she doesn’t blame them, but their absence still hurts, when she’s here to feel it. She’s spending a lot of time not-here these days. It’s easier—she’s quieter, draws less attention, makes less trouble. She’s done enough of that for a lifetime, so this is—probably better. For everyone.

Of course it doesn’t last.

***

She screwed up, lost track of the time and wasn’t careful enough and fell asleep on the roof. Her dad came home and thought she was just—gone. She didn’t mean to scare him like that, never wanted him to find out that she’s been reckless and stupid, but she did, and he did. The worst part is that he didn’t even ground her, just held her tight and cupped the back of her neck, muttering about how she can’t scare him like that.

She should feel bad. She deserves to, after that. But she can’t feel anything right now. The emotions are there, but it’s like they’re on the other side of thick glass.

 _But luckily_ , she thinks, tracing the faint lines crossing the top of her thigh, _I know how to fix that_.

She knows she shouldn’t, knows it’s not safe, that it’s not something she can keep hidden for long, especially if it becomes a habit because werewolves are nosy fuckers. Except for the fact that they aren’t, these days. They’re keeping their noses to themselves, and that means that she can get away with this. Just for a little while. Just for now, while she needs it. 

***

Her thigh is stained red under her jeans, the uneven scabs a message in Braille that no one can read through the denim and bandages. She tells herself that’s the way she likes it, that she doesn’t want anyone to know, to try and take it from her. The thought of anyone finding out, seeing it, makes her heart trip and sprint behind her ribs, makes her chest squeeze and her throat fill with choking heat.

(And despite that, a part of her desperately wants someone to find out—wants the wolves she runs with to care enough to turn their noses in her direction and ask _why she smells like her own blood_.)

***

She doesn’t expect to trudge up the stairs to her bedroom and find Jackson. He’s in her room, leaning against the window.

She can’t quite muster up the level of indignation this particular breach of privacy deserves, but she tries. “The hell are you doing here?”

Like the douche he is, he doesn’t speak, just stares at her intently. There’s something frighteningly soft about his eyes.

It makes her heart beat faster. “Seriously, asshole, why are you in my bedroom when I have a perfectly good front door? Do boundary issues come standard with the werewolf upgrade, or what?”

“You know exactly why I’m here. Don’t play dumb. You’re bad at it.”

A crazy mashup of emotion comes to life in her gut. “I _know why you’re here_? Are you shitting me? Why would I be asking you if I knew why you were here?”

And then he cuts to the chase. “Why do you smell like blood, Stiles?”

For a moment, her heart stops. And then she snaps, “Jesus, a girl’s not allowed to have a period around this place without werewolf noses all up in her business, huh?”

Jackson’s eyes narrow before he pushes off the windowsill, crossing the room and getting dangerously close. Stiles steps back, and then again, but he doesn’t stop until she’s boxed in against her bedroom door, his hands on either side of her head, so close that she can feel the heat radiating off him even though he’s not actually touching her.

“I was with Lydia long enough to know what that smelled like long before I took the Bite,” he whispers, his breath warm against the shell of her ear. “So let’s try again. Why do you smell like blood?”

She closes her eyes, mouth opening and closing as no words come out. After a long moment, one of his hands drops from the door to her waist, thumb sweeping back and forth over her shirts. “Where?”

And Stiles, well. She hesitates, because he’s never exactly been kind to her, even if he hasn’t been his usual brand of asshole since coming back from across the pond. She opens her eyes, leaning until she can look at his face, and his expression is steady, and open in a way she’s never seen—there’s no glare, no hint of a smile or smirk, just an intensity she doesn’t understand.

She guides the hand at her waist to her thigh. His eyebrows furrow before he notices the bandage under her jeans.

She doesn’t know what she expected him to do, but it’s not to smoothly pop her button and zip, dragging her jeans down over her butt before sweeping her into a princess carry. She squawks—a _reasonable reaction, thank you_ —but he just smirks, and then sets her down gently on her bed before folding gracefully to his knees on her bedroom floor and pulling them the rest of the way off. His hands are gentle as they slide up her thigh, and Stiles grips the edge of her mattress so hard her knuckles go white. There’s no coming back from this.

She doesn’t realize she’s holding her breath until she hears, “Hey, look at me.” She locks eyes with him, and he nods encouragingly. “Breathe, Stiles. It’s okay.”

She doesn’t look away from those summer-sky eyes as he peels off the bandage. Not until he drops his gaze to her thigh. She turns her head to the side, staring unseeing at the wall as his fingertips skim across the rough lines and rougher lumps of temporary scar tissue and freshly-scabbed cuts. It sends prickles up her spine.

“I get it, you know.”

Of everything he could’ve said, that might’ve been what she was expecting the least. “What?” she croaks.

He looks up at her, still on his knees on the floor, hands cradling her slashed-up thigh as he lets his blue wolf-eyes shine, and it feels like her heart squeezes in her chest as understanding slams into her like a freight train. “That’s—it’s why you told me to find you.”

His thumbs glides whisper-soft across the deepest, freshest line. “I know what’s like, to lose control of yourself to something else, and be alone after. I know the stupid shit being alone can make you do.”

And yes, he would, except—“It’s not their fault if they can’t be around me,” she rasps, looking anywhere but at his too-understanding face. “They—I, it hurt them. They need time.”

“I don’t.”

She opens her mouth, but closes it again without saying anything, because there’s nothing she _can_ say to that. She changes tack. “What are you saying?”

He snorts, and it’s the most Jackson-like thing he’s done since he got back in the country that it soothes her, a little bit. “I’m saying that there are better coping mechanisms than this.” His thumb sweeps across her thigh again, light enough not to drag, but enough to make the abused skin sting. “You just want to feel again, right?”

“What?” It’s punched-out of her, all breath and no conscious thought.

“This. You do it because you need to feel something, because you need to get away, because you need to come back, but it all comes down to feeling. Right?”

She swallows thickly, then whispers, “Yes.” Her skin is tingling under his hands.

He gives a little nod, like he expected that. “There are a lot of ways to feel, especially when you have someone else to help. Will you let me?”

It takes her a moment to find her voice. “Are you actually asking?”

His lips press together, going thin. “Yeah, I am. Cuz if you don’t tell me yes, then this won’t work. And I won’t be used as a tool to hurt someone else again, even if the person they’re hurting is themselves.”

She’s reaching out to cup his cheek in apology before she realizes what she’s doing. She stops before she makes contact, curling her fingers tight against her palm. “I’m sorry. I didn’t—you were being pushy, and I.”

Jackson shrugs, ending her foot-in-mouth routine. “Now you know. You gonna let me help, or do you need to hit some deeper level of rock bottom before you stop with the stupid shit?”

Her cheeks burn and Stiles ducks her head as she remembers the incident in the alley with Peter, and why she’d been in that bar to begin with. “I—okay.”

“Yes?”

She nods.

***

She’s mortified, at first, that Jackson seems to know how much, how _badly_ , she wants to be touched, but he doesn’t mock her for it. Instead, he runs his hands over her bare skin—sliding them under her shirts and across her belly, up her back and down her ribs—mouthing and nipping at her neck and collarbones until she’s embarrassingly wet. Once that happens, he does the furthest thing from mocking her, something she would have told you six months ago was absolutely impossible, a sign you needed your brain checked:

He fastens his mouth between her thighs, and proves exactly why Lydia kept him around so long. He doesn’t stop until she’s shaking and overstimulated, wrung-out and incapable of another orgasm. Then he slides up the bed and pulls her over his torso until her head is resting on his chest, one hand stroking her hair.

“It ever gets this bad again,” he murmurs, one hand skimming her thigh, “you tell me.”

“Okay,” she whispers, and in that moment, she even means it.

***

Her skin fits right and her sleep is actually restful for three days after Jackson showed up in her bedroom and gave her the help she needed-craved-didn’t-want, and she wonders what, exactly, is wrong with her that being tongue-fucked by her childhood bully is what makes it possible to take a deep breath.

***

For a while, she lets Jackson help—opens her thighs and gives him permission to take as he does nothing but give—and gets . . . not better, exactly, but more stable. She doesn’t cut, doesn’t get drunk, doesn’t gatecrash college parties anymore. She starts getting more sleep. She does not, however, stop feeling confused and ashamed of the fact that none of her seeming “progress” actually belongs to her. She didn’t do any of it, didn’t earn it, and won’t be able to stop herself from losing every scrap of it when Jackson decides he’s sick of her shit or finished doing his good deed or whatever-the-fuck their arrangement means to him.

But it’s working, _helping_ , which is what _matters_. She’ll figure out how to manage without what Jackson’s giving her when he decides enough is enough. In the meantime, she tries to get her shit together.

And then Dad falls off the wagon.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alrighty! Chapter two is here, and it's where things start getting better, because this story is not actually trauma-porn. But first, they do get a little bit worse.
> 
> Happy Friday, lovelies <3

She tries to stop him when he pulls out the whiskey, but he doesn’t listen. “Who’s the parent here, kid?” he snorts, and she retreats to her bedroom, hoping it’s just one or two after the beers he cracked after work.

He doesn’t stop at two. She doesn’t actually know how many he’s had, but it has to have been more than two, because he squints at her when she slinks downstairs into the kitchen to make herself a sandwich, slurs when he asks, “What’re you doin’?”

She freezes, knowing this won’t—can’t—end well, and can only pray that it’s not a disaster. “Gonna get myself a snack,” she answers lightly. She doesn’t mention that they skipped dinner because he holed up in the kitchen.

He waves a hand, and she moves, pulling sandwich ingredients out of the fridge. And then she hears, “You’re jus’ like your goddamn mother,” and her heart stops. She turns, and he’s glaring at her. “Some _monster_ creeping in to steal y’both away from me while it wears your fuckin’ _face_.”

It cuts deep, deeper than it should because she knows it’s the booze, he’s drunk, he was bound to crack under the pressure of, well, everything, but just—“Daddy, _please_ ,” she croaks. “Please just stop and—and go to bed.”

“Don’t you ‘Daddy’ me!” he hollers suddenly, throwing his glass. Stiles skitters backward as it breaks against the cabinet next to where she’d been standing. “Don’t you try to manipulate me with that! Only my daughter gets to call me that!”

Stiles isn’t proud of it, but she bolts. She doesn’t remember putting shoes on, doesn’t realize she forgot her jacket until she’s shivering in the Jeep as she speeds towards the edge of town. The words echo and bounce inside her head, and it feels like there are bands around her chest, tightening slowly until she can’t breathe.

What he said is too close to her nightmares these days.

She parks at the biker bar without ever choosing to come here, but it makes sense, in a way. Where else would she go, really? She doesn’t have friends. She doesn’t really even have Jackson.

She stumbles inside on legs she can’t quite feel, and heads straight for the bar. But before the bartender can get to her, strong hands clamp around her waist, pulling her away as a familiar voice murmurs, “I think not.”

It’s Peter, because of course it is. He’s the whole reason she’s been avoiding this bar.

“Let go of me,” she mutters quietly, because this isn’t the place to kick up a fuss, and she knows she won’t shake free of him if he doesn’t want her to.

“No.”

He pulls her right back outside, not letting her go until she’s back by her Jeep. For some reason, it makes her angry. “What the fuck, Peter?” she spits.

The last thing she expects is to have his hands snap into place against the Jeep on either side of her, boxing her in. “The first time you showed up here, I stopped you from making a stupid mistake. I thought you were smart enough to stay away from this place, and yet, here you are, somewhere you _know_ isn’t safe, taking no precautions.”

She swallows hard, hearing it laid out like that. “I don’t hear a question in there.”

His expression hardens, and her heartbeat quickens in response. “How about this, then? What brought you here tonight? And remember,” he tips his head, eyes flashing electric blue briefly, “I’ll know if you try to lie to me.”

Her heart lurches in her chest, stuttering before it sprints. Peter’s eyebrows pull together in something that looks an awful lot like concern. “Stiles,” he murmurs carefully, one hand moving from the Jeep to cup her neck, and she doesn’t stop herself from leaning into the touch fast enough. His thumb skims down the front of her throat. “Answer me, sweetheart. What brought you here?”

And she doesn’t want to answer, but she doesn’t want to be alone, either, and she knows Peter won’t let her go back inside and get lost in illicit booze and leather-wearing bad decisions. She sighs, turning away and staring at a dark blue pickup truck so she’s not looking at him. “I don’t know. I don’t—I didn’t decide to come here, exactly.”

“You were running from something then,” he mutters, and she nods. She doesn’t want to tell him that either, but here they are.

“It’s, um. A bad night at home.”

Peter hums, and she can tell he’s not convinced. “But what, I wonder, would be bad enough to send you running here on autopilot?”

And _that_ , that she can’t tell him. Wouldn’t even if she could, so she keeps her lips pressed firmly shut as her guts twist at the remembered words.

“I see.”

Her head snaps around, and she remembers, too late, that Peter is a nosy bastard that can literally scent emotions.

“What do you want, sweetheart?” She looks up at Peter, confused. He drops his other arm, hand coming to rest on her hip—not boxing her in against the Jeep, but she still feels something like trapped. “What did you hope to find here?”

She tries to pull away, but there’s nowhere to go, so she covers her face with her hands, flushing with shame. Peter doesn’t speak, waiting her out, and the silence eventually gets to her. “A distraction, I guess.”

He hums knowingly. “A distraction like the one you got the last time you were here?”

Her cheeks feel like they’re on fire. “That’s not—I didn’t—”

“Easy, sweetheart. You’re allowed to want that, you know.”

It’s not what she expected, and she can’t say she agrees. More than that, she doesn’t know what’s going on here. “So—what now?”

Peter stares at her a moment, and then steps away, tucking both hands into the front pockets of his leather jacket. She shivers as the night air presses against her skin. With Peter so close, she’d almost forgotten that she ran out without a hoodie. “Now, you have two choices. You can get back in your Jeep, and follow me back to Derek’s loft. Or,” he pauses, his expression going slightly predatory, “you can trust me to know how to help you, and come with me to my apartment.”

Those options both contain unsafe amounts of Peter. “What? Going home isn’t an option?”

“Not if it’s the place you’re running from.”

Fuck. He’s the worst when he’s making sense. “I could go to Scott’s,” she tries, desperate. It’s not a lie, she _could_ go, but whether or not she could stay is a completely different question.

Peter dips his chin. “I suppose you could, but you won’t. We both know he can’t give you what you need right now.”

 _She_ doesn’t even really know what she needs right now, but the truth of what he’s saying feels heavy in her guts. She digs the heels of her hands into her eyes, and tries to think it through. She doesn’t like either of those options, doesn’t want anyone else to see how screwed up she is—it’s bad enough that Jackson and Peter already know, never mind whatever her Dad may or may not have figured out—which means the only viable option is also the one that scares her the most.

“Okay,” she rasps, breaths coming short and hard. “I’ll come with you.”

Peter nods, and places a hand at her lower back, guiding her away from the Jeep. She makes a vaguely confused noise, and he chuckles. “We’ll be taking my bike.”

Her brain stutters at that. Not at Peter having a motorcycle, that somehow seems to fit, but getting on it with him. “But, the Jeep?” It’s a feeble protest and she knows it.

“We’ll come back for it tomorrow. It won’t be towed or ticketed until it’s sat here at least 24 hours,” is Peter’s infuriatingly reasonable reply. He’s not even telling her something she doesn’t know—her dad’s mentioned what the policies are, for vehicles left in bar parking lots.

So she doesn’t have a reason to be unsettled and almost-pissy when he carefully clips her into the spare helmet he has, but she is anyway. She doesn’t know what she feels when Peter looks at her carefully before shrugging off his leather jacket and holding it out to her.

“What?” She’s staring at it like it’ll bite.

His hand doesn’t waver. “You’ll need it on the trip back more than I will.”

And that’s. Maybe, but—“Why give it to me at all?”

Peter rolls his eyes and starts manoeuvring her into his jacket like she’s an overtired toddler. She’s so stunned that she lets him. “Because I’m not the bad guy here,” he murmurs, and she doesn’t know what to think if he’s right.

Thinking is all she can do, though, snugged up against his back, her arms wrapped tightly around his waist as they make the trip from the bar to his apartment downtown. She’s never been there, although she knows where it is—but the fact that Peter let her choose to come back with him, into his home, a place she _knows_ the rest of the Pack hasn’t been and most probably don’t know about, well. It makes her a little dizzy. She doesn’t know what this means, or why she feels more at-ease now than she has in over a week, despite the way her heart’s stuttering with adrenaline as she leans with him into the turns.

Worse, she doesn’t understand _why_.

Why Peter? Why now? Why is he helping? Is he actually helping? What does it mean if he is? Why did she run right back here, to this place she knows she shouldn’t be, to the one person she knows she needs to stay away from, when shit hit the fan?

She’s jelly-limbed and trembling when they arrive, and Peter steadies her as she swings her leg over and stumbles away from the bike. He wraps an arm around her waist, pulling her along gently as they get into the elevator and up into his surprisingly-not-penthouse apartment. Once there, she toes off her shoes as Peter unlaces his boots, but is reluctant to take his jacket off. She knows she should, but. It’s an extra layer, and it’s big, comforting in a way.

Peter looks at her and sighs, rubbing a hand over his face. “Take a seat,” he gestures towards the couch in his living room, “I’ll get us some water.”

Stiles doesn’t so much sit as collapse in a heap on his unfairly-comfortable couch, but close enough. When Peter comes back from the kitchen, he has a bottle of water and two glasses. Stiles stares as he pours, but accepts the glass he hands her. She didn’t think she was thirsty, but. No sense turning down water.

“What,” she rasps, then pauses, coughs, and takes a sip. Tries again. “Why am I here?”

Peter doesn’t look at her, instead focussing on the way he’s rolling his glass of water between his palms. “We both know that’s not what you’re really asking.” Stiles swallows, nods, but doesn’t speak. Peter continues. “The short version is that you’re here because you need something you don’t understand, can’t put into words. All you know for sure is that it’s driving you off the deep end.”

It takes a couple tries to unglue her tongue from the roof of her mouth. “How did you—”

He looks up, and there’s something terrible in his eyes. “Because I’ve been where you are, sweetheart. I know what it feels like. And I know you’ve been trying, so hard, to hold it together, that you were doing better and letting the pup help, but he doesn’t see the whole picture. He doesn’t have enough distance between himself and what he went through, yet.”

Stiles feels raw, like she’s naked in a blizzard, her skin stinging. She wants to deny it.

“But me?” His lips twist into a smile unlike any she’s seen from him—half-snarl, half-smirk, with eyes like cut glass. “I see the whole picture. And that means I’m capable of helping you in a way the others aren’t.”

And, suddenly, she’s terrified. “ _How_ will you help? Why would you?”

Peter sets his glass down on the coffee table without looking away from her. “Do you know why you ran to the bar tonight?”

Stiles freezes, because she doesn’t, and she’s not sure she wants to—not if the truth is coming from Peter’s mouth. He helped her before, the first time he fished her out of that place, but that doesn’t mean it was right.

He leans forward. “Do you know why you’ve been doing stupid, reckless things?” Stiles opens her mouth to argue, and Peter gives her a sardonic look. “They were stupid and reckless, don’t pretend otherwise. You took risks with your safety, hurt yourself.” The last bit is said softly, without judgement, but Stiles ducks her head as her cheeks heat with shame anyway.

Peter sighs, and lets that topic go. “How about why the Whittemore boy was able to help?” he asks, like that’s somehow an easier question.

And, well. None of what he’s saying is easy, so she sets her water down, too, drawing her knees up and pressing her forehead to them. “I get it,” she whispers, eyes stinging with something that feels a lot like defeat. “I’m a mess and you’re smart enough to know why, even if I’m not.”

She doesn’t expect Peter to move closer and start stroking his fingers through her hair. “That’s not what I said, Stiles. I said I understand, because I’ve been there. I know what it’s like, to have control of yourself—your mind, your body—taken away. I know what it’s like to have done terrible things while you weren’t able to choose, the way the guilt feels impossible to escape after. I know what it’s like to long for Pack after you’ve survived, only to find yourself abandoned.”

She’s not crying. She isn’t. She’s just not coming out, and the damp spots on the knees of her jeans are an accident. She must’ve spilled some water.

Peter’s hand moves to the back of her neck, squeezing gently, and it’s comforting in a way it has no right to be. He waits, and eventually, she’s got enough control of herself to lift her head. Peter’s hand falls away, and she tells herself that she doesn’t miss it. “So, what now?” She avoids eye contact, reaching for the water and closing her eyes as she gulps the rest of it down.

“Now, you’re going to come to bed with me.” She drops her glass in shock, head whipping around to stare at him as it hits the floor with a dull _clunk_. “You’re going to strip bare, and we’re going to have some quality skin-on-skin time. If you want, we’ll have sex. You’ll have to let me know what your boundaries are, if there are things you need or won’t like, but it’s yours. All you have to do is ask. If you don’t want that with me, that’s fine, but you’re not allowed to crawl into disreputable establishments reeking so strongly of desperation that even human predators can smell it. That’s asking for a kind of trouble no woman needs.”

Her cheeks must be glowing, they feel so hot. She doesn’t know what part of that to object to first. But Peter doesn’t give her the chance.

“Moving forward, if you get overwhelmed to the point that you feel the urge to do something stupid and self-destructive, you’ll come to me and I’ll punish you.”

“ _What_?!” Stiles squawks, anger surging to life in her gut. “You think I deserve to be punished for all this?” She flails an arm, encompassing herself, him, the living room. “You think this isn’t hard enough?”

“No, I don’t think you deserve to be punished,” he says slowly, head cocked as he stares at her calmly. “I think you want to be, so you can stop feeling guilty.”

Stiles’s mouth falls open but nothing comes out. She can’t breathe.

Peter gives her a rueful little smile. “I think you want to feel bad in very specific ways, ways you choose, so you can feel like you’ve atoned for all the lives it took wearing your skin.”

“It—it doesn’t work like that,” she stammers.

He shrugs one shoulder. “Of course it doesn’t, but that doesn’t mean that you won’t get something out of that arrangement, or that it won’t help you. You can know, logically, that it wasn’t your fault, that you aren’t responsible for its actions, but that doesn’t change how it feels. I’m offering you,” he pauses, tilting his head again. “An outlet, let’s say.”

“An _outlet_ ,” she scoffs, and Peter’s eyes narrow.

“Therapists that are aware of the supernatural are few and far between, sweetheart. While you could try to find one, support from your Pack—especially the Whittemore pup and myself—would still be valuable, if not necessary. Therapists like to go on about the importance of social networks.”

Stiles is getting the brain-version of whiplash. “Know that from experience, do you?”

If she’d hoped to rattle him, it fails—he simply looks her in the face and says, “Yes, actually.”

“Oh. Um,” she scrambles, trying to figure out what to say.

Fortunately, Peter spares her. Sort of. “Shall we head to bed?” He stands, one arm extended, palm up. Waiting.

She uncurls from the couch, setting her feet on the floor but not standing up as she fiddles with the zipper of his jacket. “Are you serious about the whole,” she flaps a hand, “naked thing? Because, honestly, that seems like the sort of thing you’d joke about, just to be creepy and over the top.”

The fingertips he brushes under her chin, tilting her face up until she’s looking right at him, are a surprise. Mostly in how gentle they are. “I’m serious. I’m not going to patronize you by trying to claim you aren’t an adult—not when you’ve had an experience like the Nogitsune. You know that bodies are just that. I’ve already made it clear that I’ll respect your boundaries with regard to sexual contact, but you can’t pretend you don’t want to soak in as much skin-on-skin as you can.”

She _hates_ when he’s right. It’s even worse when he’s not a prick about it. It’s why she doesn’t touch what he said with a ten-foot pole—he doesn’t need the ego boost. “Uh huh. And what do you get out of it?”

She lets him pull her to her feet, and then down the short hallway to his bedroom. “Pack contact, the same as you.”

And all she can think is, _Oh_.

It means she nods, when his hands hover over the zip of the leather jacket and asks, “May I?” He unzips and gently helps her out of it before draping it over a chair in the corner. He then casually pulls his shirt off, and suddenly she can see the broad expanse of his back, and she wants to get her hands on that plain of skin, wants to curl around him and nuzzle her cheek against his shoulder. The strength of the urge shocks her a little.

To distract herself, she turns around to toe off her socks and undo her jeans, since apparently they’re undressing themselves. She sheds her flannel overshirt easily enough, but stops there, because that’s where it starts getting difficult. If she takes her jeans off, Peter will see her scars, and if she takes off her shirt, she’ll be completely topless, tits and ribs on display. Either way he’ll _see_ , and she’s not sure which of those options scares her more.

Big hands settle on her hips, startling her as Peter comes up behind her. Probably her fault for turning her back to him in the first place, but still. His hands start pushing her jeans down, and she tenses, but the whispered, “Shh, it’s alright,” convinces her to let it happen. She’s not really sure why. His hands find her hips again, steadying her as she steps out of the denim pooled at her feet, and then turn her to face him.

Stiles can feel her heart pound as he stares into her eyes, deliberately holding her gaze as he gathers the fabric of her t-shirt in his hands. When most of it is bunched between his fists, just below her breasts, he murmurs, “Arms up for me,” and she obeys. He still doesn’t look away from her face, and even though her view disappears for a moment as he pulls her shirt over her head, she’d bet money that his gaze never dropped. She doesn’t know why, but it feels true.

Of course, then she’s naked—or mostly, her underwear is still on—eyes skittering to the right and towards the floor as her shoulders hunch and she fights the urge to cross her arms over her breasts. Peter, the asshole, just _tsks_ , and then draws her in close, pressing her in tight against his chest, and Stiles immediately thinks, _I never want to leave_. The awkwardness of being pressed up against a completely naked man for the first time takes a backseat to how _good_ it feels.

She’s shuddering, and gasps against him—smelling the subtle woods-musk-leather-linen smell that’s always said “Peter”—and he wraps one arm tightly around her waist as the other cups the back of her neck. “It’s alright, precious,” he murmurs, and she feels it as much as she hears it, her ear pressed just below his collarbone. “I’ve got you.”

She winds her arms around him and squeezes tightly. He gives a little _oomph_ noise, and chuckles, but doesn’t say anything else.

Long before she’s ready to move or do anything but nuzzle slightly at his chest hair, he lets go. “No,” she whines, clinging tighter.

His fingertips scritch through the short hair at the back of her head. Her once-buzz cut is now more of a shaggy pixie. “Come on, now. The bed will be better for this than standing.”

She really, really hates when he’s right. She maybe also hates the idea of detaching from him, because again, there’s that issue of him really seeing what’s going on under her clothes in ways that Jackson doesn’t. And not only because she keeps a shirt on when she’s with him. Peter will see, and then he’ll do that creepy thing where he just . . . _knows_ all kinds of things he shouldn’t have any way of knowing.

She doesn’t let go, but ultimately, it doesn’t matter. Peter simply bends at the knees, scooping her up into a bridal carry, and then he’s sliding them between the soft, cool sheets of his bed. She’s relieved, because once she’s under the sheets his werewolf eyeballs can’t read every secret she doesn’t remember having, but she’s a little taken aback too. “Eager?”

He scoots her over, pulling the sheet over himself before curling an arm around her waist. “I’m not the only one—unless that was someone else nuzzling at my chest like a puppy.”

She feels her face heat, and ducks her head to hide it. “This was your idea, remember.”

“It was.” He sounds nonchalant as he drags her into the curve of his body, pillowing her head on his bicep and draping his other arm over her torso as he settles them face-to-face.

“Happy?” She means for it to sound a lot more sarcastic than it does, but she’s warm, and feels safer than she should, wrapped up in werewolf and darkness and thousand-count sheets.

Peter hums. “Yes, thank you.” He dips his head to kiss her shoulder, and the scrape of stubble contrasted with the soft brush of lips sends tingles racing down her spine as she tries—and fails—to stifle a gasp.

Peter pauses. “Stiles?”

“Uh huh?” She tries to sound as normal as possible, but she’s pretty sure she’s missed by a mile. She’s suddenly hyperaware of her own body, the lack of clothing, every heated inch of skin that’s touching.

There’s a long pause, and then Peter asks, “Would it be alright if I kept doing that?”

Oh God. She should absolutely say no. She really should, except—“Please?”

And he doesn’t second-guess her, doesn’t ask if she’s sure, just goes right ahead, nuzzling and nipping and dropping light kisses along her neck and shoulder as every nerve ending comes alive in ways they absolutely shouldn’t.

Stiles gasps and tilts her head back, clutches at the silky-smooth skin over his ribs and cups at the back of his head, choking out a moan when he opens his mouth to scrape inhumanly-sharp teeth down her throat.

“Do you need me to stop?”

It takes a moment for the question to sink in. When it does, she knows it’s not about anything as simple as necking. He’s a werewolf, so he can hear the way her heart’s speeding up, smell the way want is rising from her skin—but aside from that, Peter isn’t a stupid man, and never has been. He won’t have forgotten what drove her to the biker bar in the first place, or that she was running from something this time. It doesn’t take a genius to understand where this will head if it continues.

Stiles swallows, her mouth suddenly dry. “No,” she rasps.

There’s a pause. “I see. Should I stay up here, or can I put my mouth on other parts of you?”

She’s seen him smirk and snarl, heard him talk his way into and out of trouble more times than she count, but the thought of what else he might be able to do with that particular body part makes her thighs squeeze. “Yes,” she whispers.

Peter leans back a little to look at her. “Yes?” She nods. “Where?”

“Anywhere you want,” she rasps, because if she’s doing this, with Peter, she may as well go for it. No one will forgive her for it regardless of how innocent or filthy tonight ends up being. 

The hungry look that flashes over Peter’s face is both promise and warning, but she doesn’t have time to question it before he slithers down the bed, head ducking under the sheets as he fastens his lips around one of her nipples. Her mouth falls open as he worries it with his teeth, suckling gently before flicking it with his tongue.

A shudder rolls down her spine as _want_ pools between her legs. “Oh God,” she whimpers, her fingers threading through his hair.

He pulls back for a moment. “I’ve got you, precious, you’re alright.” The hand stroking down her back is probably meant to be reassuring, but the fact that his hand splays wide between her shoulder blades, bracing her as he mouth finds her other nipple, is more arousing than soothing.

He goes back and forth between them, licking and nibbling and worrying them until they’re sore and Stiles is so wet she’s pretty sure she’s soaked right through her underwear. She’s so out of her mind with the need to come that she can only sob, “please,” as Peter leaves hot, open-mouthed kisses down her stomach and hooks his fingers in the elastic of her panties. She lifts up on one elbow so he can slide them off, and then flops onto her back, legs spread wide because shame will require daylight, and it’s nowhere near dawn.

Peter gives a rumbly sound of approval when he sees. “Just like that, that’s my good girl,” he murmurs, crawling up the bed into the space she’s created for him looking every inch the predator. 

It’s not until he dives in, groaning with satisfaction as his tongue slides firmly over her clit that she realizes what his prey is in this scenario. His big hands slide over her hips, pulling her more firmly against his face as he suckles and slurps with gusto, stalking her orgasm with an enthusiasm she thought he only reserved for murder.

He makes her come—as if there was ever any doubt he would—with a lethal combination of suction and firm strokes with his tongue, his fingertips digging bruises into her hips. When the aftershocks end, she’s lying limp on the bed, her hand still tangled in his hair and rubbing at his scalp as Peter pants against her stomach.

“Good?” he asks, and Stiles stares at him dumbly for a moment.

She’s not sure whether he’s asking if it was good, or if she’s okay, or something else entirely, but regardless, the answer is, “Yeah.”

He slides up her body to kiss her softly, and she realizes it’s their first. She kisses him back, long and slow, until she thinks she can taste him under the tangy-musk of where his mouth has just been.

“Ready for more?”

Her eyes widen, because somehow, she didn’t expect that. “Uh. What did you have in mind?”

He leans in to nip at the sensitive skin below her ear. “I’d very much like to make you come on my cock.”

She’s never—she’d offered, but Jackson declined. It shouldn’t be frightening, because it’s just another first in a long line she probably won’t see the end of until she’s on the other side of forty, assuming she lives that long, but it _is_ , somehow. Peter goes up on his elbows to look at her, her trepidation betrayed by her scent or heartbeat or something else his enhanced senses pick up, but he doesn’t speak. He just waits.

And, well. If she’s going to do this for the first time, she may as well do it with an older man who knows what he’s doing—with a werewolf who will be able to scent her pain or distress and care enough to stop or wait. So she whispers a shaky, “Okay.”

Peter doesn’t ask if she’s sure, though he does wait a moment, scanning her face. Whatever he sees there, he nods, and then moves to sit at the side of the bed while he digs through the night table. “You allergic to latex?”

“What?”

She looks over, and he holds up a foil square. “Latex, sweetheart. Are you alright with a standard condom, or do I need to break out the polyurethane?”

Something warm and tender expands inside her chest at the question. “Pretty sure I’ll be fine with regular latex.”

“Alright. But if you start feeling anything odd—a burning sensation, itching, pain—you tell me, you understand?”

“I will, promise,” Stiles whispers, feeling choked as the warmth in her chest continues to expand. She coughs to clear her throat. “How do you want to do this?”

He looks over his shoulder at her for a long moment. “Have you done this before?”

Stiles drops her eyes, licking her bottom lip before she shakes her head.

“Then, in answer to your question,” Peter tips her chin up so she’s looking at him, “we’ll do this slowly. At least until you tell me otherwise.”

Stiles stares into his sky-blue eyes, and her hesitation vanishes. “Okay.” She’s not sure why, and maybe she shouldn’t, but she trusts Peter with this.

“Lie down for me, that’s it.”

She plants her feet and lifts her hips when he tells her to, and he spreads out a small towel under her with a smirk. “If I do this right, you’ll make a mess, and I’m enough of a gentleman to not make you sleep in the wet spot.”

Stiles laughs, and Peter grins back in the dark, and the moment feels like a secret.

He pours lube over his fingers even though she’s already wet and messy, but he shakes his head at her protest. “Trust me, precious—a little extra won’t hurt, not for your first time, but not enough absolutely _will_ cause problems.”

She forgets anything she might have said in response, because he slips two thick fingers inside her, and the feeling is just as good as she remembers from the alley. It only gets better from there, because this time, his fingers aren’t twitching out little pulses against her g-spot, they’re sinking _deep_ and massaging at nerve clusters she didn’t even know she had.

He doesn’t stop until she’s trembling and on the verge of tears. “Decision time, Stiles.” The sound of her name makes her pay attention. “Do you want to take me on your back, or on your stomach? You’ll have a pillow under your hips either way.”

Stiles gnaws on her lip for a long moment before muttering, “On my stomach,” and coordinating her limbs to turn over. The thought of being even more vulnerable than she is already, and of letting Peter see it, well. She’ll have enough to live with when morning finds her.

Peter doesn’t say anything, just gets the pillow and towel under her before smoothing his hands up her back and then down her legs, guiding them apart. Stiles presses her forehead to the sheets and waits, impatient and anxious and jittery, as Peter rubs the tip of his cock along her folds, lining himself up.

“Deep breath in, sweetheart,” he murmurs, and she obeys before she can think about it.

He pushes in slowly, stopping when the head eases inside. It’s so much, it’s almost overwhelming, but only almost, and all she can think is—“Keep going?”

He does, sliding all the way to the hilt and then pausing for a moment, draped along her back like a living blanket. Before it becomes claustrophobic, he puts his weight on the elbows and forearms he has bracketing her, lifting off her back as he starts rolling his hips smoothly, and Stiles can’t help the keening noise she starts making, because it’s, this is—

It’s the best thing she’s ever felt.

Peter starts dropping kisses across her shoulders, the back of her neck. “That’s it, precious,” he growls, his thrusts getting a little quicker as she moans and cants her hips back for more. “Taking it beautifully, feel as good as I knew you would.”

“Peter,” she moans, already close.

He huffs out a breathless laugh. “Get a hand under yourself, that’s it,” he stops moving so she can, and then drives into her harder, grinding her hips down into her hand.

It’s sinfully, decadently good, and it doesn’t take long before pleasure starts building, tension ratcheting up-up-up until every muscle is taut and shaking as Peter stutterfucks them both into climax. They lie there for a long moment, after—Stiles warm and pressed into the mattress under Peter’s bulk as he pants against her throat. She likes it more than she probably should.

But it doesn’t last, because of course it doesn’t. Peter lifts off her, pulling out smoothly and heading into the bathroom to deal with the condom. Stiles sits up awkwardly, her thighs and lower back twinging in protest. She makes a face as she sees the slick, sticky spot she left on the towel, and sure enough, she’s a complete mess between the thighs.

She uses the towel to wipe up the worst of it, because she might as well. Not like she hasn’t already gone and gotten her DNA all over it. Peter comes back from the bathroom, catching her, and suddenly, she feels very, very exposed. “Um.”

He chuckles. “It’s what the towel’s there for, sweetheart. But you should use the bathroom before we go sleep.”

Stiles blinks at him, unsure of what part of that to address first, let alone what to say to any of it. “What?” ends up falling out her mouth.

Peter helps her off the bed, and steers her toward the bathroom. “Have a drink of water, pee so you don’t get a UTI, and brush your teeth if you want—there’s a spare toothbrush under the sink. Once you’re done in there, come back and we’ll go to sleep.”

It’s so surreal that she’s brushing her teeth on autopilot before she realizes that she’s doing as she’s told. Which is really, really unlike her.

But the fact is, she feels better—more like herself, calmer, tired in the way that she knows will let her actually sleep—so she doesn’t fight it. Not right now. There’ll be time for that tomorrow. For tonight, she does as Peter says before slipping under the covers and letting him pull her close before they drift to sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 4 is officially done now, so the end of this will be coming at you right on schedule next week, but for now, here's chapter three, lovelies! Hope you enjoy it! 
> 
> Brief warning here for some internalized misogyny/slut-shaming on Stiles's part.

Stiles wakes up slowly, her body heavy and warm and a little stiff in that way that tells her she passed out and then didn’t move all night. It takes a few minutes for her to drag her eyelids open and realize there’s a reason why she’s still groggy and on the cusp of drifting back off—she’s not in her own bed at home.

And, in fact, she’s not alone either. Peter’s still here, curled loosely around her back. Which explains how warm she is, but not much else.

She squirms, and tries to stretch, and is reminded of the fact that they went to sleep very, very naked. “Uh. Shit.”

“Good morning to you, too.”

She turns to look at him over her shoulder. “Sorry, that—that wasn’t directed at you.”

He quirks an eyebrow, and oh god, his _hair_. The bedhead is somehow both sexy and adorable, and she wants to get her fingers in it so bad it’s insane. The raised eyebrow he gives her hardly registers under it. “Then what was it directed towards?”

The list of ways she could answer that question. The truth is, daylight’s caught up with her. She sits up awkwardly, hugging the sheet to her chest and feeling cliché. “It was mostly in surprise? I’m not—I haven’t done this before. With you.” _I don’t know how to feel about this, you, myself, what we did, what I let you do_ , she doesn’t say. She doesn’t know how.

Peter’s expression softens, and he sits up too, wrapping an arm around her and tucking her against his side. He’s so warm. “What happens next depends on what you want. We can shower—together or separately—collect your Jeep, and I can take you to breakfast before you go to school. Or I can drop you off at the Jeep and let you sort things out from there.”

She thinks about it, and realizes that, as fucked up as it probably is, she actually—she feels pretty good right now. She got almost seven hours of sleep, but it’s not just that. It feels dangerous to admit, but. Peter . . . helps. And she doesn’t want to lose that just yet. “I like the sound of shower and breakfast together, actually.”

“I have excellent ideas. Would you prefer to shower alone, or is company welcome?”

She’s never showered with someone else before. Like, yeah, sure, she’s been in the locker room with other girls after gym class, and used the showers there a time or three, but it’s not the same. Nowhere even close.

But, since she’s already down this rabbit hole, what the hell. “Come join me?” she asks shyly.

Peter smiles, and rests his forehead against her temple. “It would be my pleasure.”

***

Whatever she thought shared showers might be like is eclipsed by the reality of sharing one with Peter. They take turns ducking under the spray, the temperature cranked so that the bathroom fills with steam and isn’t freezing for the person waiting their turn. It’s strange, to be able to really see him, without darkness or eyelids or a pillow to hide from the reality that yes, she is, in fact, showering with a naked man. The naked man who she not only had sex with, but gave one of her firsts to.

The magnitude of that hits in waves, and she can’t quite give herself permission to look at him.

Peter, of course, feels no such shame or hesitation—he washes her, running soapy hands over her breasts with the same level of care and attention as he gives her back, arms, calves. She waits for him to comment on the scars criss-crossing her thigh, but he doesn’t. She knows he sees them. She’s so caught up in how to talk about them that it shocks her a little when he slips a hand between her legs, angling her so that the water washes away the lingering mess. “You sore?” he murmurs, and she hums noncommittedly, because she is, a little, but not as much as she would’ve thought.

She doesn’t expect him to slip a couple fingers inside her, or for the veins in his forearm to turn grey as he draws the little discomfort that lingers. She maybe should have expected him to bring her off again, leaning against his chest as the hot water pours over them, his fingers playing her body just right, but she doesn’t.

He lets her recover, panting against the tile as he washes his hair, and she realizes he’s _hard_. He wasn’t when they got in. And she wonders what it would be like, to make him fall apart too, so she reaches out and wraps a hand around him when he tips his head back to rinse the shampoo out. He groans, and she freezes, but he just squints at her through one slitted eye, muttering, “Why’re you stopping?” and, well.

Shutting him up by squeezing on the upstroke is more satisfying than she thought it would be. She’ll definitely keep this in mind if she ever needs to make him stop talking again.

She brings him to climax as the water starts to run cold, and the kiss he presses to her lips is shorter and more passionate than she expects.

***

She has, apparently, at some point, left a long-sleeved shirt in Peter’s possession, so she puts that on with yesterday’s jeans when they get out. She still feels naked, but doesn’t want to wear yesterday’s flannel, so when Peter wordlessly holds out one of his shirts, she murmurs “thanks,” and pulls it on. She doesn’t quite swim in it, but it’s a near thing. She knows she’ll smell like him, but after sleeping in his bed and showering together, the shirt is probably the easiest explanation for that, if anyone asks.

The worst part about the whole morning-after situation is the lack of clean socks and underwear, but she keeps a change of clothes in the Jeep for a reason. Once Peter takes her back to where she left it, she changes her socks and squirms around in the backseat with Peter playing lookout to put on fresh panties, and immediately feels better. The thought of breakfast on his dime is suddenly wildly appealing.

They head to _Mary’s_ , and get a booth out of the way. “So, now what?”

Peter quirks an eyebrow at her over the menu. “Now, you decide what you want to eat. I’d prefer if that choice was something more substantial than fruit and toast—like something with eggs, perhaps—but I won’t lecture you on proper nutrition today.”

“You know, I wasn’t actually worried about that before, but I am now, so thanks for that.” Peter smiles like butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth, and Stiles stares at her menu so she won’t hit him with it. She’d thought she wasn’t hungry, but being here and smelling the delicious breakfast scents—coffee and sizzling bacon, eggs and fried potatoes—has her changing her mind and remembering that she didn’t actually eat dinner last night.

She goes with an omelette and hash browns with a slightly-vindictive order of bacon on the side, because if anyone deserves bacon after last night, she does. Peter orders something similar, but more pretentious.

After that’s done, though, he pulls a few sheets of folded up paper out of his jacket, along with a pen, sliding them across the table to her. Stiles picks up the sheets, tense and expecting bad news, a written agreement—anything except the completely blank sheets she finds when she unfolds them. “I don’t understand.”

Peter nods at the waitress who delivers their coffee, and begins doctoring his. “We’re going to treat what’s happening to you like a research project. I want you to take those,” he nods at the paper in her hand, “and start laying out the pieces. See if you can find a pattern.”

She dumps a shitload of sugar into her coffee to avoid picking up the pen and doing just that. “And, what? You’re just going to sit there while I complete this little homework assignment?”

He gives her a deadpan glare over his coffee cup. “Of course not. I’m here to help you put the puzzle together.” He sets the mug down and continues before she can reply to that. “As your reaction last night proved, not understanding this is causing you distress. So, while I could just hand you what I believe to be the right answer,” he pauses, tilting his head to stare at her meaningfully.

“You know that I’d never accept it from someone else. I need to find the answer for myself,” she says slowly. Stiles almost hates him for knowing her so well, but the fact is, she’s felt more like herself since he took her to bed than she has in weeks, maybe months, and she doesn’t understand _why_.

Peter nods. “You don’t trust me, not yet, not the way you’d need to, to accept that I’m telling you the truth rather than trying to manipulate you somehow. Even though I could have, both times I fished you out of that shithole, and elected not to.”

Once again, he’s right, and she doesn’t know how to feel about that, so she sets it aside for now, choosing to pick up the pen. “What should I be writing down, here? I don’t know where to start.”

Peter hums. “Stick to the facts, for the moment. Where have you been? What have you been doing? What choices have you made? Treat it like evidence.”

She breathes a little easier, because she can do that. It lets her ignore the twisted mashup of emotions tumbling through her gut, so she can work with it.

But as she starts jotting things down—things that include “self-harm”, “drinking”, “drunken hookup”, and “sex w/Jackson”—she sees a collage of shit decisions that makes her feel sick. Peter must smell it on her, because he taps the table to get her attention.

“If I may?”

She looks at him, at his outstretched hand, and doesn’t get what he’s asking. “What?”

He nods to the pen and paper. “I have a few observations to add, and it might help you remember other details.”

She slides the pen and paper back across the table reluctantly, because while she really doesn’t want to know what in the hell Peter’s picked up on, he’s right that bouncing ideas off other people—and especially him—helps her gain insight ten times as fast as she’d manage on her own.

As he’s scribbling, their breakfast arrives, and Stiles doesn’t wait to dig in. Peter absently eats a few bites with his left hand as he continues to write with his right, and Stiles wonders if he’s ambidextrous, or if that’s just a life-skill you have to pick up in a big, busy family of werewolves.

She’s not ready to see what he wrote when he slides the paper back across the table, but she’s not a coward, and the lure of answers is strong enough that she’s willing to brave whatever caustic commentary Peter’s added to get them. When she starts deciphering his spiky, elegant handwriting—because Peter Hale can’t print, or scrawl in a respectable chicken-scratch like every other dude she’s ever known—that’s not what she finds.

Under her scribbled “self-harm”, he’s added “ _haircut?_ ”, and listed his own name underneath “sex w/Jackson” before drawing a little arrow out to the side and adding “ _Pack contact_ ”. Underneath that is the question “ _other Pack contact?_ ” Her breath catches a little, and she stuffs another bite of bacon in her mouth to cover it up before writing “none”.

She hadn’t really—that angle hadn’t occurred to her. Peter said, last night, that they’d both get Pack contact out of naked cuddles, and at the time, she’d been suspicious of that excuse, half-expecting an ulterior motive. And while they’d definitely had sex, she knows she could’ve backed out or stopped him at any point. He’d been good about that, had checked in and asked, respected her boundaries just like he said he would. And she’d been too hung up on the _Peter_ and _sex_ parts to stop and think about why she was so easy for him. Him and Jackson both.

Stiles taps the pen against that phrase— _Pack contact_ —considering as she eats a few more bites of breakfast. She wonders if that’s all this has been—if she’s been starved for Pack, the way Peter seemed to imply. Jackson, too, she remembers, brow furrowing. He’d talked about being alone and doing “stupid shit” because of it. If anyone had asked, she wouldn’t have said that she was craving Pack—she’s just human, she knows she doesn’t feel the bonds the way the ‘weres do, and she hasn’t pushed, hasn’t inflicted herself on Scott or Lydia, Derek or Kira or Isaac, because she can take a hint. They need time, and she respects that, but, maybe . . .

Unfortunately, when she looks over the whole list, Stiles can’t really dismiss all of it as Pack-attention-seeking behaviour. For one thing, Peter and Jackson aren’t the only people she’s spread her legs for—she draws a long line from their names to the other side of the page, where she writes “sex” before going back and drawing lines from “drunken hookup” and “biker bar” to it. Her slutty behaviour is, unfortunately, something of a theme, here, and breakfast sits heavy in her gut as last night’s delayed shame finds her.

In an effort to distract herself, she goes to add something else to the list, only to see what Peter’s written under her scrawled “biker bar” and it stops her cold.

_Biker bar  
\---> first time – seeking sex?  
\----> second time – running from home  
\---> home/Sheriff part of problem? _

The urge to defend her dad bubbles up, but the memory of last night’s episode causes the protest to die in her throat. She sips her coffee trying to choke down the lump. When she can manage speech again, she glares across the table. “My dad is _not_ part of the problem,” she rasps.

Peter’s lips press together, his expression going more serious than it has all morning. “Do you know what I heard just then?” he asks softly, and no, _no_ , he’s not going to do this to her.

“Don’t you dare—”

“You’re lying, Stiles.” He folds his arms on the table, leaning forward. His voice is pitched low, but his tone is implacable. “And what’s worse, you’re lying to _yourself_.”

Stiles shakes her head, feeling her heart speed with something like panic. “No.”

“The only people you’ll compulsively defend are Scott and your father,” Peter says, and may all the gods damn him, because he’s _right_.

She tries another tack. “That doesn’t mean he’s part of the problem.”

Peter dips his chin, conceding the point. Stiles takes a breath, only to have it punched out of her when he asks, “So what were you running from last night, then?”

And again, just like last night, her gut twists and her throat closes as she remembers the words that sent her running out of the house so fast she didn’t stop for a hoodie, or her phone, because all she knew in that moment was that she needed to _get out_.

Peter hums knowingly at her silence, and she snaps. “Look, okay, just because there was a—a bad night, doesn’t mean he’s part of the problem, alright? Everyone has a hard time with all this,” she waves a hand between them, “shit, and just because we both had a hard time and I lost it a little doesn’t mean he’s—a bad parent, or, or—”

Peter’s hand closes around her wrist. “Easy, Stiles. I need you to breathe for me, precious, that’s it.” The tight hold he has on her is bizarrely soothing, and gives her a focal point as she tries to wrestle her breathing back under control. Once she has, his grip gentles, but he doesn’t let go. “That’s it. Now, I know you don’t really want to talk about it, but it is actually important to factor in what’s going on with you and your father, precisely because you’re so close to him. You live together, and you’d take a bullet for him without blinking, but he’d do the same for you. Whatever happened, I guarantee you he’d rather be part of the solution than part of the problem, but for that to be possible, you need to be honest.”

She pulls her hand away, and he lets her, leaving her to her silence as she finishes her omelette and tries to think about what that would mean, exactly. She ends up writing “social isolation” under the chain about Pack contact, and hesitates before jotting down “depression – antidepressants (not working)” at the bottom of the list.

She’s staring aimlessly at the piece of paper detailing her sins when Peter breaks her out of her reverie. “Seeing any patterns?”

She shakes her head before she can think about it. “Not yet.”

“Here, let me see.” And then, like the rude-ass he is, he pulls her rap sheet back toward himself and Stiles decides that finishing breakfast before the urge to barf murders her appetite is the only practical thing to do.

When he slides it back across to her, she braces herself, but all he says is, “Subgroups.” Her brow furrows, and she looks again. Once she does, it jumps out at her, and she feels like an idiot for not seeing it before.

Rather than falling into a single, unified category, her recent range of out-of-character behaviour shows up in two flavours: self-destructive—she remembers Peter’s comment last night about punishment and feels shame crawl up her throat—and blatantly promiscuous in the absence of Pack or any other positive social contact.

“Do you see, sweetheart?”

Nausea churns in her gut, and she doesn’t meet his eyes. “I do.”

***

She wears Peter’s shirt all damn day, comforted and confused by it, but not once does anyone ask or seem to notice that she’s covered in eau de Hale. When she comes home, it’s to a note on the fridge from her dad, explaining that he’s been called in, but he’s sorry, and they’ll talk when he gets back. She doesn’t know how to feel about any of that, so she goes to bed early, curling up under her covers still wearing Peter’s shirt, and refuses to think about what any of it means.

***

She can’t stop thinking about that conversation with Peter, about finally having answers for why she’s _like this_ and feeling worse for knowing. She carries around the sheet of paper in her pocket, pulling it out to stare at it or write something else on it sometimes, when she’s alone. She gets, now, why she was acting like such a slut—she was desperate for connection, cut off from her Pack and deliberately shutting her dad out. She wants to fix it, wants to mend the bridge between herself and her dad, wants to _choose_ whether or not to go to bed with someone instead of denying that freezing, pricking need pushing her relentlessly towards other people until the only way to satisfy it is to let them inside her. She thinks she’s been trying to exchange one kind of possession for another, and it can’t be healthy. It _can’t_. 

No matter what Peter says.

***

Jackson shows up a few days later, and she’s mortified when his hands drop from where they’re wrapped around her in a hug to cup her ass through her jeans. She skitters backward, eyes on the floor and heart in her throat as she chokes out, “I—I appreciate what you—what you did for me. But I don’t—”

“If you don’t want to, that’s fine. You can just say that.”

She takes a deep breath, and forces herself to stand up straight and look at his stupidly-chiselled face. She chooses her words carefully, because keeping secrets from werewolves is a pain in the ass when they’re paying attention. “It means a lot to me, that you agreed to our,” she flaps a hand, “little arrangement, but I think I’ve figured out the root of the problem, so you don’t need to worry about that anymore.”

Jackson tilts his head, eyes narrowing as he presses his lips together until they almost disappear. “What the fuck is going on in that head of yours, Stiles?” he asks, his voice soft and his stare piercing.

And Stiles, well. She swallows, her mouth dry, because there really isn’t a good answer to that question. She decides to go with the least-damning truth. “I know that you were trying to help me, and I appreciate that. But I think I understand, now, why I was,” she gestures, drawing a line with her index finger through the air over her thigh, “so you don’t need to worry about me anymore.”

If anything, his glare intensifies. “Let me see if I get what you’re saying here,” he starts, and Stiles’s stomach sinks because she recognizes that tone. “You seem to think, for whatever reason, that I was coming over here and hanging out with you, holding you, having sex with you, because, what? Orgasms might stop you from self-destructing?”

Jeez, when he puts it that way, it sounds pretty awful. “I’m not—”

“Did you think I was just having sex with you because I felt bad for you?”

Her eyes widen and her mouth drops open wordlessly because trust Jackson to hit the nail on the head when she most wants to keep him as far away from the truth as possible. She doesn’t recover fast enough, and he swears.

“Jesus fucking—you’re Pack, okay?”

That word hits her like a ton of bricks. “What?”

He grunts, frustrated, and reaches out, pulling her in close and wrapping his arms around her in another hug. “You’re Pack to me, Stiles. Always have been, even when that annoyed the shit out of me,” he mutters against her hair. Stiles doesn’t know how to respond, so she stays quiet, and he keeps going. “And I won’t lie, I like having sex and having it with you has been good, but this isn’t some arrangement for me. It’s a thing I’m doing, that I’m happy to do, because it seemed to help you. Because you needed _something_ to make the aftermath a little more bearable, and I get that. I remember what it was like, but at least I had my parents, and the pack Derek found for me in London. From what I can see, you’re—pretty much alone.”

It hits like a kick in the chest. “It’s not their f—”

“Honestly, I don’t care about your martyr complex, here,” Jackson interrupts, squeezing her a little tighter. “What matters is that you’re not dealing with this alone, that you get what you need to be okay. So if you don’t want to keep having sex with me, that’s fine. But I’m not going to just up and disappear because there’s no possibility of getting in your pants anymore, okay?”

“Okay,” she murmurs, because what other response can she give?

“And Stiles?” He lets her go and steps back, hands resting on her shoulders so he can see her face. “If it turns out that this is something you _do_ need, you tell me, okay?”

It’s so surprising it shocks the truth out of her. “It’s not—I’ll be fine.”

A muscle in his jaw twitches, and there’s tension in his face that wasn’t there a moment ago. “Stiles, I would rather spend a couple hours eating you out every week than find out you were hooking up with strangers who have no idea about any of this, of what you’ve been through. Never mind the risk.”

“I’ve been safe!”

He levels her with a look that would be more at home on her dad’s face. “Even if that’s true, accidents happen, and there are pricks who don’t like being told ‘no’. At least if you’re with me, you know that I can’t carry or give you an STD, and that I’ll stop if you tell me to.”

This conversation has gone completely off the rails, and she has no idea how in the hell it happened. Stiles takes a deep breath, and tries to get them back on course. “I know, and like I said: I appreciate it. It means a lot to me, that you’ve—that you’re willing to do that. I’ll tell you if I need that from you,” she promises, and she means it.

(But if she secretly means that she _won’t_ need that, well. Not even werewolf ears will hear that in her heartbeat.)

***

Given what she knows, what the problem actually _is_ , Stiles goes off the antidepressants. Her doctor isn’t happy about it, but even he can’t argue that they weren’t helping. She’s not screwed up because her brain chemistry suddenly went sideways, she’s a fucking train wreck because of trauma.

Not that she can explain that to her doctor, but still. The meds aren’t working. She shouldn’t have had to argue about going off them, shouldn’t have had to make threats to get the information on how to quit them safely. She tells herself that it doesn’t matter, because she knows, now. She’ll wean off them on the bottle she has now, and hope she was right about them not-helping or she’s going to be so, so screwed.

***

Daddy’s been working a lot. Probably too much—she’s barely seen him in the last three days, because swing shift. And, now that she’s starting to get actually better, without using other people as a crutch, she wants to fix things between them. She just. She wants to get better, wants to be a better daughter, to feel like they’re family again.

(She also maybe wants a hug from him so badly she could cry.)

So she cooks spaghetti bolognaise, boxes it up, and drives into the station. She knows that they can’t fix things right away, that trying to talk about anything at the station is a bad idea, but she can at least do this. She can bring him dinner and they can eat together. It’s a small thing, but it’s a start. She hopes.

But when she walks into the station and toward his office, he steps out and his eyes go wide. He closes the gap between them, his hands gripping the tops of her arms as he hisses, “You can’t be here.”

The bottom of her stomach drops out. “What?” she asks, voice so small she almost doesn’t recognize it’s hers.

Dad is already steering her back out towards the front. “You need to go, right now, you shouldn’t have come—”

She doesn’t hear the rest. Her head is too full of white noise as her stomach twists and threatens to empty. She gets back into the Jeep, and starts driving on autopilot.

It’s not until she’s halfway home that she thinks of what might make this better, and she pulls over. Fumbling with her phone, she manages to dial Peter, but ends the call before he can pick up. She doesn’t—she’ll blurt things out, and that’s not, she needs to explain in person. So she texts, asks if she can come over, and when the “yes” she receives in reply comes through less than a minute later she maybe sobs a little in relief.

She spends the drive to Peter’s trying to pull herself together enough that she won’t immediately break down when she sees him, but, weirdly, when he opens his apartment door to let her inside, something like relief washes over her.

Peter doesn’t speak, staring at her, assessing. After a long moment, he says, “Come here, precious.”

She does, and more relief flows over her like the tide. Peter cups the back of her neck and she shudders, moving closer instinctively, and before she knows it, she’s wrapped her arms around him and tucked her face against his chest as she shakes.

He holds her tight, not letting go until she does. She takes a step back and drags in a hitching breath, eyes on the floor, bracing for what she’s going to ask. “I need—will you punish me?”

There’s a moment of silence that feels like it lasts an eternity. Then, gentle fingers under her chin tip her face up, and Peter waits until she’s raised her eyes to meet his. “I will give you that,” he says softly, “but if you’re coming to me for this, you have to agree to do it my way. The point of this is for it to be an outlet, better for you than self-harm, and that means you need to be honest with me. You understand?”

Stiles’s heart is thudding frantically against the cage of her ribs, because she’s suddenly afraid she’s miscalculated. But she’s not going to turn back now, not when she’s already here, already come this far. “I understand.”

He nods. “Will you be good for me, precious? Do as I say?”

That question should scare her a lot more than it does. It feels like something she should never even think about agreeing to, but the murmured, “yeah,” falls out of her mouth before she can second-guess the impulse.

(Being here, with him, with whatever happens next, can’t be worse than if she was sitting at home, alone with the static in her head.)

“Okay, then. I’m going to ask you some questions, and then I’ll decide how to handle things from there.” He pauses, and Stiles nods, swallowing. It’s only then he continues. “First question is an easy one, sweetheart—have you eaten dinner?”

A lump forms in her throat as she thinks about the dinner she made that’s sitting untouched in her Jeep right now. She can’t speak, so she shakes her head.

“Alright. Then we’ll do that while you’re here. Second question: why does food have you this upset?”

She doesn’t want to answer, she _doesn’t_ , but—“I tried to take dinner to my dad at the station,” she says, voice hitching and breaking on all the tears that aren’t spilling down her cheeks. “I wanted to eat with him, but.”

Peter moves slowly, telegraphing his intent, as he reaches out and cups the back of her neck again. “But?”

“He kicked me out,” she confesses, voice small as the child she feels like, admitting to being this upset because daddy didn’t have dinner with her.

But Peter doesn’t mock, instead pulling her into another hug. “It’s not your fault, precious. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Stiles scrunches her eyes shut, but feels stubborn tears wet her eyelashes anyway. “Doesn’t feel like it.”

Peter gives her a little squeeze. “You leave those stubborn feelings to me. For right now, I have two more questions. I’ll start with the easy one. What happened to the food you made?”

“It’s in the Jeep.”

“Okay. I want you to go get it, and bring it in—there’s no sense in it going to waste. When you come back, you’ll tell me what I’m punishing you for.”

Stiles jerks back, staring at Peter with wide eyes. One look at his face tells her that he’s not joking, and that he won’t let this part slide, even though it’s the last thing she wants to do. She doesn’t realize she’s shaking her head until Peter’s lips thin.

“That part’s non-negotiable, precious. I won’t punish you if I don’t know what it’s for—and I won’t let you just leave to go self-destruct somewhere else, either.”

Stiles bites her lip and ducks her head. Peter lets her go, and she trudges out of his apartment and down three flights of stairs with her mind awhirl. She probably should have expected this, but she didn’t, and she doesn’t want to. Peter won’t understand, will think the wrong thing, that her dad isn’t a good father when the truth is that she’s the bad apple, here. She should have known better than to show up at the station without a shred of warning, than to bother Dad at work, but she’d hoped—

She bites her lip, because it doesn’t matter what she’d hoped. It went to shit, and she’s here so Peter will punish her the way she deserves, because her dad won’t. He still believes the best of her, probably because she’s still lying to him about the things that really matter.

When she walks back into Peter’s apartment, she tries to figure out how to tell him a version of the truth that doesn’t feel like baring her entire soul for divine judgement. A familiar itch is starting to crawl under her skin, and she knows she could take the easy way out, could tell Peter she’s changed her mind and ask him to take her to bed, but she’s trying to be better than that. Trying to make better choices, to face her fuck ups instead of letting someone else distract her from them.

But after he takes the Tupperware of spaghetti from her and stashes it in the fridge, once he’s looking at her expectantly, all the carefully-crafted half-truths die in her throat. Her mouth opens and closes soundlessly, but she can’t make words come out.

Peter nods once. “Okay then.”

She thinks that’s it, the end, she’s fucked it up and she won’t get her punishment after all, but then he’s wrapping one big hand around her wrist and tugging her toward his bedroom. “Change in plans, precious. You’re going to strip for me, and bend over the bed.”

Her face and ears burn, but it’s a relief to mutter, “Okay.”

“And then,” he lets her go as they cross the threshold, and she turns to see him rifling through the night table on the far side of his bed, “you’re going to tell me what I’m punishing you for.” He holds up a black paddle. “You don’t speak, you don’t get your spanking.”

“But—that’s not fair!” If she starts talking, starts spilling it out in the midst of being punished, there’s no way she’ll be able to hold in the parts he won’t understand.

Peter huffs, tossing the paddle on the bed. “If I’m going to punish you, we do it my way. You remember that bit?” He quirks an accusing eyebrow at her, and Stiles drops her head in shame. “I understand that this is hard for you, but I’m not the bad guy here. You came here, asking for my help—now you need to _let_ me help you.”

Stiles swallows, and nods, her pulse pounding in her ears. Her hands shake as she strips out of her clothes, and this time, Peter doesn’t meet her halfway—doesn’t help her take everything off, doesn’t let her hide in his bare skin to avoid being in her own. He just stands there watching, his blue eyes warm as she slowly does as she’s been told. Once she’s bare, she crosses her arms across her chest and looks at him, wondering how, exactly, he wants her to bend over the bed.

It occurs to her—belatedly, the way so many things do, these days—that it’s a really sexually suggestive position she’s about to let him put her in. 

(It doesn’t matter, because how could it, when she’s already given him so much, when she’s already let him take her to bed and push inside her to chase the emptiness away.)

Peter points to the floor in front of him, and Stiles crosses the room. She lets him bend her over the end of his bed, arms uncrossing from her chest to brace herself. “You’ll want your feet a little wider apart so you don’t lose your balance,” he murmurs, and she’s obeying before she realizes how on display it leaves her.

But Peter doesn’t touch her. Instead, he picks up the paddle, and rubs it over the meagre curve of her left butt cheek. “Why did you come to me?” he asks, voice smooth and soothing like silk against her bare skin.

Stiles drags in a breath, and gives him the truth, because she knows she can’t do anything less. “Because I was scared,” she whispers. “I felt numb, and like the inside of my head was nothing but static, and I was scared of feeling that way.”

“Good girl,” Peter murmurs.

And then the paddle cracks across her ass without warning, and Stiles cries out—mostly in shock, but a little in pain, too. The skin where he’d struck her feels hot, tingling like a hundred tiny needle pricks. She’s twitching a little in the aftermath, but the raging storm of emotions she’s been fighting since her dad turned her out of the station dials down, just a little, just enough that she thinks, _he was right, I needed this_.

It’s enough to make her open her mouth again, to mutter, “I screwed up, it feels like all I ever _do_ is screw up, I just wanted to be better—” the paddle cracks against her skin again, and she gasps and keeps going, “a better daughter, a better person, just _better_ ,” she sobs at the third strike, harder than the others were, and her eyes well up at the sense of relief that blooms in its wake.

“That’s it, precious,” he breathes, his free hand stroking up her spine to rest across the back of her neck. “Let it out.”

And, under Peter’s paddle and hands, she does. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are, darlings--the end of this ride. Thank you for coming along on it with me, and I hope it leaves you better than you found it. 
> 
> Happy Friday.

She’s wrung-out after, hollow and brittle like she’s been scooped clean. It’s like nothing she’s ever felt before, but the strange emptiness is a welcome relief. Peter cradles her like a child, and they both ignore the neediness she can feel and he can smell, though Stiles doubts he needs werewolf senses to read it on her. At least, they ignore it until he skates fingertips up her thigh and murmurs, “Would you like me to take care of that for you, precious?”

And she does, she _would_ , but—“No.”

He pauses, because she lied and they both know it, but he lets it go, because on this, it seems, he’s unwilling to push.

He lets her get redressed, and then he reheats the spaghetti she made, eating with her and making sure she drinks a full bottle of water before he’ll let her drive herself home. The entire time, he doesn’t let her out of his sight, which is both a comfort and a torment when the only thing she wants more than to be close to him is to come hard enough she loses feeling in her toes.

She goes back to an empty house, and staggers inside. Her ass and thighs still ache, but not nearly as badly as the desperate pulsing between her legs. She doesn’t bother getting undressed—just shoves her jeans down and gets her fingers on her clit, rubbing furiously until she comes.

When that isn’t enough, she kicks free of her pants and uses her other hand to finger herself. An hour later, there are tears gathering in her eyes as she curls up in bed with an ice pack between her legs because she can’t find the loose-limbed, bone-deep satisfaction she’s after, no matter how many times she orgasms.

***

The desperate arousal hasn’t gone away when she wakes up, though it has, thankfully, eased off a little. Stiles doesn’t bother trying to rub one out before school—she has a sneaking suspicion that her own touch isn’t what she’s after, and she doesn’t know how she feels about that. She’d like to not-think about it, but it’s all she _can_ think about as she showers and gets ready for school.

She just. She doesn’t understand. She’s been spending time with Jackson. She went to Peter instead of any other number of things she could do. She held up her end of the bargain, didn’t do any of the “stupid shit” she thought about and might have done, if last night had happened a few weeks ago. It doesn’t make any sense, why she’s riding the edge of desperate for skin and sweat and the feel of another body over her, in her. She’s gotten Pack contact. She’s—not purged or shed or even let go of, but done _something_ about the guilt to make it manageable. The fact that she’s still craving this makes no sense.

She goes to school and ignores the weird looks she gets from the (maybe) packmates she shares classes with. It’s not as hard as it might’ve been, once. They’ve been ignoring her for weeks now, there’s no reason to suddenly remember she exists for the sole purpose of being rude about what their werewolf-noses can smell on her. At the same time, it makes her lungs squeeze, just a little, having their attention. Just for a moment.

But she knows it won’t last, that they won’t do anything about it, so she doesn’t try to talk to any of them, doesn’t follow anyone to their lockers or expect anyone to follow her. She’s dumped her books and is staring at her lunchbox wondering if she has the willpower to eat the food inside it when a hand slides smoothly under her elbow.

It doesn’t startle her like it should, which is, itself, kind of startling.

When she looks up, she sees Jackson’s face, eyebrows pulled together so tightly there’s a little crease between them. “Hey. C’mon, come with me.”

She doesn’t know why, but she’s kind of relieved. If there’s some kind of issue she can help with, it means she can stop fighting with herself over To Eat, Or Not To Eat? So she shuts her locker with a bang and follows him as he leads her, bizarrely enough, into the girls’ locker room.

She looks around pointedly before locking eyes with him and drawling, “Okay—?”

Jackson shrugs the shoulder that’s not carrying his backpack. “No one’s ever in here over lunch break.”

Yeah, that answers nothing. “Okay, but why are _we_ in here?”

The look he levels at her is undeservedly deadpan. “Do you think I can’t smell that on you?” He takes a step forward, and Stiles shuffles backward, heart beating faster as the implications hit her. “Do you remember what I told you, about if you needed it?”

She shakes her head, retreating another step. “Just because you can smell—it doesn’t mean I need anything!”

Jackson closes the distance between them in a blink, sliding his hands around her waist and pressing his cheek to hers so he can whisper, “Maybe you just want it, then.”

Stiles closes her eyes so she doesn’t have to fight to keep them from rolling back in her head at the tingles rippling across her skin from having his hands on her. “W-wanting it doesn’t mean I have to give in.”

Jackson huffs. “Of course not. You could just let all this desperation build up until you do something stupid,” he whispers, breath hot against her neck and making a shiver race down her spine. “ _Or_ ,” he growls, “you could let me help, the way said you would.”

He’s sort of backed her into a metaphorical corner with her own promises. Also, having him close feels too good to fight. She’s human and weak and ashamed, but she still murmurs, “Okay,” because all the other options make her feel _worse_.

Jackson turns his head so his mouth drags up her neck, and a breathy gasp escapes her. He manoeuvres them around a corner, where they won’t be seen if anyone comes in, and backs her against a wall before opening the button and zip of her jeans. Stiles would tease him for that, or maybe argue, except he’s caught her lips in a surprising kiss—and, once he pushes her jeans down to mid-thigh, he slides his fingers between her slippery folds.

She breaks their kiss to moan softly, and Jackson curses, sounding awed. His fingers sink inside her easily—she’s still open from fingering herself last night—and it’s good, but it’s not _right_ , somehow, not _enough_ , he’s still too far away, and she whines, high and sharp like a frightened animal.

Jackson presses closer in response, fingers working, rubbing at her g-spot. “I’ve got you,” he murmurs. “Tell me what you need.”

A sob catches in her throat as she arches into the push of his fingers inside her. “I don’t—I don’t _know_ ,” she gasps, and it hurts, to admit it, but it’s freeing at the same time. She’s been lost since she took her first breath of water and invited darkness to live inside her in the name of saving the only family she has left.

But Jackson just drops a kiss on her jaw. “I’ve got condoms in my backpack, if you think that’ll help.”

It takes a moment for what he’s really saying to sink in, and it makes her hesitate. For all that she’s done that with Peter, it still feels new and frightening. It also, tellingly, makes her clench around the fingers he’s got knuckle-deep between her thighs. So, for all that it scares her, she breathes, “Please?” and lets him step back and fish one out.

She doesn’t look as he fiddles with his clothes to get his dick out, instead taking off one shoe and slipping that leg free of her jeans and panties. It’s not that she’s not curious, but it feels—this is different. He’s taken his shirt off for her before, let her press against his bare chest and run her hands up the smooth skin of his back, but he’s always drawn the line at getting his own dick involved whenever he’s been in her bed. This is new.

Jackson doesn’t share her insecurity, and the fact that he’s definitely done this before—though maybe not this, specifically—becomes clear as he steps in close, hitching her bare leg up over his hip and guiding the tip of his cock inside her. Stiles gasps, throwing her arms around his shoulders as he rolls forward smoothly, one hand cupped under her thigh, holding it in place over his hip, and the other wrapped around her waist as he starts thrusting.

It’s so—she’s whimpering and whining helplessly, unable to keep quiet, because it’s good, it’s _so_ good, she understands now why Lydia was with him for so long, if he could make her feel like _this_.

Jackson chuckles, stopping for a moment. “I know I’m good, but you gotta keep quiet, baby.”

Blood rushes to her cheeks until Stiles is convinced they must be glowing, but, “I can’t.”

Jackson looks at her contemplatively. “You like biting?”

She blinks at the non-sequitur. “I . . . don’t know?”

“Guess we’re gonna find out.” He unwinds the arm he has around her waist to tap at one of the arms she’s got round his shoulders. “You should touch yourself and set your teeth in my shoulder so we don’t get caught.”

She’s a little unsure, but she does as he says—dropping one hand to rub at her clit as the other tugs his t-shirt out of the way to set her teeth against the warm skin of his shoulder. He shudders as she does, and she realizes he _likes_ this. The knowledge sits warm in her stomach, and she digs her teeth in a little harder as his arm wraps back around her waist and his hips start rolling again. It’s still good enough to make her glad there’s a wall holding her up, and grateful she’s muffling her noises against Jackson’s shoulder.

At one particularly well-aimed thrust, she bites down harder, sucking on the skin in her mouth in an attempt not to cry out, and his hips stutter as he groans in response. It’s a race from there to the finish for both of them, and when Stiles comes, it’s with her teeth sinking deep into the meat of Jackson’s shoulder and her fingers tangled in the hair at the nape of his neck as stars burst behind her eyelids. He follows her soon after, shaking and gasping as he rides the aftershocks of her climax to his own.

***

They breathe for a long moment after, pressed close and trembling, and then they’re scrambling to right their clothes and ditch the condom before anyone catches them. Jackson walks out with an arm around her waist, steering her back to her locker and sitting with her as they eat, right there on the floor of the hallway, and even as she banters back and forth with him about the merits of the latest Marvel movie, all she can think is, _he was right, I did need that, oh god, what the fuck_.

***

She comes home more stable than she left it and deeply disturbed by that fact. She doesn’t know what to make of this, of her actions, what she’s feeling, because none of it fits with what she thought she knew about any of this, about herself.

She’s so lost in her own head that the soft, “Hey, kiddo,” startles her so badly she jumps half a foot in the air, making a godawful gaspy sound.

Her dad looks contrite. Because Dad is home. Wait. Dad’s _home_? Why is Dad home? “Is everything okay?” she asks first, because she has to assume it isn’t, if he’s home when he’s rostered to be at the station until six o’clock.

For some reason, it makes his mouth pinch. “C’mere, kid.” He holds his arms out in the universal dad signal for a hug, and she flies across the room, dropping her backpack and keys to wrap her arms around Daddy’s shoulders because there’s nothing she wants more in the world right now.

He holds her tight, one hand coming up to cup the back of her head, and it makes her shake, because he’s done that since she was a kid and it’s always meant _safe now_.

“You know I love you, right?”

She leans back, not far enough to break the hug, but enough to see his face. “I don’t—what’s this about?”

He sighs, lips going thin in a way that never bodes well. “Peter Hale came to see me today.”

The bottom drops out of her stomach, and all the warm affection filling her chest drains away, replaced with icy dread. “Oh?”

His hands settle on her shoulders. “I knew you weren’t okay, alright? I knew that. But I had no idea you were spiralling that bad, and it kills me that you didn’t tell me, that you’d hide this from me.”

Stiles can’t handle the disappointment in his gaze, and drops her eyes. “I didn’t want to make things worse for you,” she admits, wrapping her arms around herself.

“Kid, it’s not your job to protect me from whatever bullshit you’re going through—I’m the parent, here, it’s my job to get you _through_ the bullshit and out the other side. Do you get that? That’s what’s supposed to be happening here.”

She can’t help the way she starts crying at that, and Dad just—tucks her against his chest and manoeuvres them to the couch, where he lets her cry it out against the soft cotton of his undershirt that smells like cologne and station coffee and _Dad_. He strokes his fingers over her messily-growing-out hair until the tears and trembling have stopped.

She drags in a few deep breaths, and starts with the most pressing question. “What did Peter tell you?” because she has to know what he already knows, if there’s damage control to do and how much, if she needs to Do Something about Peter.

Her dad snorts humourlessly. “Not as much as he should’ve, and definitely less than he knew.”

Given how much Peter knows, that’s not comforting. “Okay?”

Dad sighs. “He told me that you called him last night from the Jeep because you were in a tailspin after I sent you out of the station. Kiddo, you have to know I didn’t send you away because of anything you did—there was an urgent callout, a domestic dispute that escalated to weapons being fired. You know that’s an all hands on deck situation. I didn’t want you caught in the middle of that when we brought the bastard in, but more than that, I didn’t want you stuck sitting around waiting for me when I had no idea when I’d get back.”

“Oh.” She doesn’t know what else to say.

Dad doesn’t have that problem. “Did Peter actually fish you out of that dive on 54th Street?”

Her heart stutters in her chest. “Maybe?”

He sighs and leans a cheek against the top of her head. “Goddamnit, kid, what on earth made you go there?” He doesn’t sound mad, just tired. Maybe a little sad.

She doesn’t want to answer, doesn’t want to hurt him with the truth, so she skirts. Just a little. “I don’t really know? I didn’t—it wasn’t really something I chose, more like a really good not-thinking bad decision. Especially the second time.”

There’s a pause, and she realizes she slipped. “You mean you went there more than once?”

“I, uh. Sorta?”

“ _Stiles_.”

She winces and nuzzles her face against his chest. “The first time, I was just. I was really fucked up. I don’t really even know what I was looking for. Peter,” she pauses, remembering what happened and thinking about how much she really, absolutely doesn’t want her dad to know she let a man twelve years older than her take her apart in an alley. “Peter stopped something bad from happening.”

“What bad thing?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know. He got me away from the guy before anything really happened.”

She hears his sigh rattle his chest. “Fuck. Never thought I’d be forced to respect Peter Hale.”

She props herself up to look at her dad’s face, feeling like a cat that’s been stroked the wrong way by his tone. “Peter’s been good to me,” she says carefully.

Dad gives an exasperated sigh, dragging a hand over his face. “Yeah, see, you say that like it’s supposed to reassure me, like it’s a good thing. But it’s not some almost-thirty-year-old werewolf’s job to take care of you, kid. It’s mine.” Before she can start to unpack all the things wrong with that, he shakes his head and gives her a disappointed look. “What the hell were you thinking, going to that bar?”

And at that, something inside her breaks. She leans away from him, putting space between their bodies for the first time during this conversation. “I don’t know,” she says, so angry she feels cold. “What made you climb inside the whiskey bottle that night?”

Dad’s face closes off, and it feels like a kick in the gut even though she didn’t actually expect anything else. “I understand you’re in a rough place right now, but you can’t distract me by bringing up my d—”

“Do you even remember what you said to me?” she interrupts, because she can’t let him off the hook this time. Not when Peter wouldn’t let sleeping dogs lie.

It stops him cold, and he turns his head to look at her on an angle. There’s a long, silent moment before he swallows audibly. “Not off the top of my head.”

And that admission hurts in a way that reminds her of being eight years old and knowing Mom was never coming home. “You told me,” she says softly, voice cracking like an old radio, “that I was just like Mom. That we were stolen from you while something else wore our faces.”

The weathered face she loves so much cracks open, devastated, but somehow, it just makes her angry again. “And then you basically told me that I’m not your daughter, I’m the N—” she stutters, gets up, and paces for a moment before she spits, “ _Nogitsune_ , and threw your fucking tumbler at me. I bolted, and when Peter found me, he made sure I didn’t do anything stupid while I was all fucked up. He stayed with me, made sure I wasn’t alone.” She’s crying now, angry and heartsick with it, because she never wants to be angry at her dad. “I could text Peter right now, and he’d answer me in five minutes. I could call Jackson, and he’d drop what he’s doing and come over, but you can’t even—” she stops, because she doesn’t have words. There’s so much pressure inside her chest it feels like her ribs are going to snap.

“Kiddo, I’m—”

And Stiles just. Can’t. “Stop,” she chokes, and amazingly enough, he does. For a long moment, it’s quiet, and she can hear the too-quick rasp of her breathing. She tries to slow it down. “I love you but I _can’t_ —I can’t do this right now.”

She looks up at her dad, and sees him nodding slowly, looking at her with naked worry in his eyes. “Okay,” he murmurs soothingly. “Okay. Why don’t you call one of them, and we can—later.”

She nods, a fresh gush of tears sliding down her cheeks—this time, in relief, because the pressure inside her chest is easing. She sits outside on the front porch, and calls Jackson, as awkward as that is, because if anyone will understand how much parent-child issues suck, he will.

Ten minutes later, he’s guiding her into the Porsche’s front seat, and it feels like she can breathe again.

***

She slinks in later that night as quietly as she can, locking the front door behind her and slipping up the stairs to her bedroom. As much as she loves her dad, she just can’t deal with anything else tonight, so she sleeps instead. Her last thought before passing out is how grateful she is that the Whittemores weren’t upset at having an unexpected dinner guest, because it means she’s not going to bed on an empty stomach.

***

Stiles wakes up the next morning and immediately wants to go back to sleep, because if she’s unconscious, she doesn’t have to face her dad. Unfortunately, she needs to pee, and take her meds, which means getting up and having breakfast, and that makes Dad pretty much inevitable.

Only, when she does putter downstairs, the house is empty. Dad’s not here. For a moment, a sick, heavy feeling gathers in her stomach. She’s not sure what to think, why he _wouldn’t_ be here, and then she notices a small box on the counter from the good bakery. When she opens it, she sees two of her favourite kolache inside, and knows this is apology breakfast. Which, you know, kind of makes her feel a little better about last night’s shitshow, but it doesn’t explain where Dad is.

The answer to that turns out to be on the fridge—a new roster has been put up in the usual spot, even though it’s not time for one to come out yet. Squinting at it, she sees that Dad’s working days or nights, but no swing shift for the next two weeks. And he’s scheduled for fewer shifts than normal, by the look of it.

The schedule under it lists the times and meeting places for the local AA chapter. The 6:30-7:30am meeting for today has been highlighted, and so have all the 5:30-6:30pm meetings for the next couple weeks, and Stiles has to blink away the tears that well up. She doesn’t have time to cry about this right now. She has to get ready for school.

She eats her apology-kolache as warmth blossoms inside her chest.

***

Stiles wishes she were surprised when Peter follows up by texting her while she’s at school, but really, no. Peter’s always been a shit-disturbing busybody. He wants to know everything, and the werewolfitude just makes it easier for him. Of course he wouldn’t let sleeping dogs lie.

_How did things go the other night, precious?_

Stiles thinks about how—and whether—to answer him for a few minutes. It’s easy to be annoyed, because Peter was out of line, going behind her back and tattling to her dad. It would also be easy to forgive what he did given the outcome—Dad’s getting help, they’re spending more time together, and she’s starting to relearn how to be honest with him again. And Peter’s the one who made that possible.

In the end, she settles on the truth. It’s starting to feel less dangerous to give Peter that, which might be crazy, but Stiles doesn’t think so. Not anymore.

 _I’m mad at you for telling him, bc you had no right, but at the same time? Things are going . . . better_. It’s weird to be able to say that to herself, let alone Peter, but it’s true.

His reply comes through almost immediately. _I’m glad_. A second text appears shortly after the first. _I know you didn’t want to be honest with him, but you need him if you’re going to recover_.

Stiles doesn’t know how to answer that. He said too much and too little at the same time, and she doesn’t know what to address first so she just. Doesn’t.

She really does hate when he’s right. It’s the worst.

***

She doesn’t have sex with Jackson again. She knows, now, that she needs the skin-on-skin, the heat and sweat and vitality of it, and he’s good at it, but something about it just doesn’t fit right. Not the way it does with Peter—who is a separate puzzle that she’s still working out the solution for, but that much, at least, she knows.

(Has known, from the first time he saved her from her own stupid decision and gave her what she needed before she even knew she needed it.)

Despite that, he doesn’t make things weird. She’s starting to trust that he meant it, when he called her Pack, that it’s a thing she can count on. They eat lunch together, now. Sometimes in front of her locker, sometimes on the bleachers, and sometimes, like today, in the cafeteria with Danny.

Danny, who is currently looking at her like she’s an alien. “What?” she snaps.

He shakes his head. “Look, you’ve always had weird taste, but a backwards baseball cap is just. Why.”

And, well. Stiles half-laughs, half-groans into her hands. “Okay, you remember how I buzzed all my hair off a while ago?”

Danny’s eyebrows lift. “Hard to forget.”

She flaps a hand around her head. “It’s growing out, but it’s awful right now.”

“So, what? Your plan was to just let it grow back out until it stops looking awful?” Jackson looks at her incredulously.

“Not exactly,” she hedges, because that may have been exactly what she planned to do, but if she doesn’t use a definitive statement, his little werewolf ears can’t catch the lie in her heartbeat.

“Uh huh,” he says, clearly disbelieving her. “Come over to my place tonight, and we’ll see if I can’t make it look less like something you want to hide under a fuckboy hat.”

Stiles squawks and throws a French fry at him, but she’s grinning as she does it.

***

Stiles goes from having a sort-of mullet to a shaggy, sort-of undercut instead as Jackson uses the longest guard on his clippers to buzz off everything from her ears down, and then a shorter guard to shorten the hairs at the back of her neck. He uses a pair of scissors to neaten up the longest bottom layer of hair after she tells him to go for it. It’s still messy, but at least now it looks intentional.

But greater than the relief at having hair she can show in public again is the sense of warmth that fills her chest when Jackson cups the back of her neck, thumb rubbing through the soft fuzz at the base of her skull as he says, “I’d do you,” with a teasing smirk.

***

She knows, now, that she needs it. She even knows that Peter is, for reasons she doesn’t want to look too closely at, the person she wants to get it from. The person who might actually, objectively, be the best choice, because he _understands_.

Knowing these things doesn’t make it easy, though. Because it’s not.

It’s hard, so much harder than it feels like it should be, to admit to someone else that she does, in fact, need this. Even when that someone is Peter, who already knows. Who’s proven he will give, when she needs, because they’re Pack.

(Stiles wonders if this is so difficult because she never thought Jackson and Peter would be Pack to her in this way, visceral and wet, flesh and sweat and bone-deep in a way that she’d thought, once, she’d had with Scott, would always have with him, and . . . doesn’t, now, because the corpse of his first love lies between them despite the girlfriend he now has. Stiles doesn’t wonder if Allison will always lie between them, because how could she do anything else? The dead don’t move.)

She needs, and she knows it like the metallic tang of blood in her mouth. Unlike blood, she can’t just swallow this down and pretend she never bled in the first place, and that. _That_ means she needs to learn how to live with this, with the fact that she’ll fall open under a kind touch and take whatever they’ll give, because she needs it as much as the Nogitsune needed chaos and pain. She doesn’t know what that says about her, but the easy way Jackson and Peter both treat it makes it easier to stop hating herself for it.

(She called the supernaturally-aware therapist Peter got her the number for, and will start sessions with them soon. She’s as relieved as she is hesitant about it, but has agreed to try.)

But just because she doesn’t hate herself for it anymore doesn’t make it easy to arrange a time to go over to Peter’s for what they both know will be sex. It still feels like something she should be ashamed of, something she should quit regardless of the consequences, because apparently she heard that “no one _needs_ sex, and if they tell you they do, they’re trying to pressure you” enough times growing up for the message to sink in. She reminds the voice of the sex ed teacher in her head that werewolves and possession weren’t covered by the syllabus, but can’t make herself believe it.

But she _also_ knows that desperation will win out over shame every time, and Stiles has always been practical, even when it hurts, so she womans the fuck up, and texts Peter.

_Need my maintenance fuck :)_

His reply, as always, comes within a few minutes. _It HAS been a while. Come over when you’re ready_.

Twenty minutes later, he’s letting her into his apartment, his big, warm hands cupping her jaw as he presses a delicate ‘hello’ kiss to her lips. When he pulls away, his blue eyes are warm, and the turmoil inside her eases. “What do you need?”

 _You_ , she thinks, but doesn’t say, because there are some truths she can’t admit, even to him. Not yet. So she thinks about what she plans to do tomorrow, how she’s been feeling almost lost inside her own skin. She thinks about the ways he’s been gentle with her, how careful he’s been with her boundaries, all the ways he could’ve hurt her and chose not to. She closes her eyes and remembers what it felt like when he bent her over his bed and paddled her ass until she cried. She thinks of those things, and opens her eyes to tell him, “I need something I’ll still be able to feel tomorrow.”

He stares at her face for a long moment, searching. “I can give you that,” he says slowly. She smiles, leaning in for another kiss, because she knows he can, and that he will, even the things she couldn’t say out loud, because she thinks he heard them anyway. 

***

He strips her bare and binds her wrists in the front before bending her over his bed. This time, he uses his hand, not the paddle, to layer strikes over her ass and thighs until they’re hot and red-pink and she’s a mess of need. When it ends, she trembles and pants, trying to catch her breath as his fingertips skate feather-light up her back. When she’s steady again, he asks for something new, something they haven’t done, and Stiles, well.

She sinks to her knees and gives him another of her firsts, and something like pride blooms in her gut at his stuttered breaths, his murmurs that are all sweet words and something like awe. The fingers he winds in her hair touch and ground and guide without any real force behind them, tender in a way she didn’t expect, given what she asked for. He stops her when her jaw starts to ache—which is much sooner than she’d like—and takes her lips in a kiss that feels like “thank you”. She’s not sure why, because she enjoyed it more than she thought she would and is so turned on she’s ready to beg, but she feels like she maybe understands anyway.

He lifts her from the floor and lays her out on the bed before raising her hands and attaching them to his headboard with some sort of clip. His eyes don’t leave her face, and Stiles knows he’s giving her a chance to protest, back out, as if she didn’t put herself in his hands with shockingly few reservations when she walked through the door. As if he doesn’t know that she _wants_ to be in his hands more and more often, these days. So she closes her eyes and opens for him—baring her throat and parting her thighs, giving the most honest and absolute permission she knows how when she can’t trust her words to tell him.

Peter rewards her for it with tongue and fingers and cock until she’s shaking through her fourth orgasm with him over her, in her, teeth bruising her throat and cock grinding deep as she comes untouched.

She spends the night after, more naked than she knew it was possible to be, cradled against Peter’s chest and soothed by the steady, reassuring beat of his heart under her ear. She sleeps peacefully, and this time, when she wakes to his impossible, outrageous bedhead, she doesn’t resist the urge to comb her fingers through it. He pretends to grump about it, but she can see the corners of his eyes crinkling in laughter, feel it vibrate through her where they’re pressed skin-to-skin, and the thing she doesn’t—won’t—name in her chest grows.

***

Stiles sits in her car for a long time, breathing deep and feeling the sweet aches in her body from last night. She knows she needs this, needs the closure, and she wants it, but—like everything else has been on her road to “better”—it’s hard. It feels harder than it should be, but then, with the lives they live, maybe the rulebook for “should” deserves to be thrown in the trash. It certainly hasn’t helped her lately.

Eventually, she takes one more deep breath, and presses her fingers against the love bite Peter left on her throat, and gets out of the Jeep. She looks at the Argent house, and feels her stomach grow heavy, but she walks up the path and climbs the front step. She’s here because there’s something she needs to do, and she’s never let unease or awkwardness stop her before.

She knocks on the front door, and is a little surprised at how quickly her knock is answered. “Stiles,” he rasps, sounding surprised. “What are you doing here?”

She takes in the way his eyes look sunken, how his beard’s longer than she’s ever seen it, and she feels her heart twist for him. “Hey, Mr. Argent,” she says softly, gently, because she’s not here to cause anyone anymore harm, “can I come in?”

**Author's Note:**

> I am also on [Tumblr](https://queerfictionwriter.tumblr.com/), where you can sometimes get sneak peeks of stuff I'm working on, see updates about long-fic, ask questions about behind-the-scenes stuff on my fics, and get news about my published works (of which there will be a new one in October).


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